Climate Neutral Campus Report by Mia J Chuang

The Climate Neutral Campus Report Chief Executive Officer & Publisher Nick Smith Vice President Publishing Christopher Smith Vice President Marketing & Operations Mike Rodger

Contents INTROduction Higher Education’s True Role Anthony D. Cortese, Sc.D., Second Nature..........................................................

Section 1:

COMMIT

Editor in Chief Lisa Picarille

Why Policy Change?

Copy Editor Laurence Cruz

The Sustainable Campus as a Learning Lab

Client Development Brett Gajda Production and Design Blackwave Creative Special Thanks to Second Nature Antony Cortese Michelle Dyer Gina Coplan-Newfield Kyoto Publishing 740 Nicola Street Suite 100 Vancouver, British Columbia Canada V6G 2C1 Printer Teldon Print Media ISBN 978-0-9813326-0-4

Inside Text:

Don Ryan, Second Nature.................................................................................

Mitchell Thomashow, Unity College...............................................................

Case Study: Bentley Deploys Asset Management.....................................................................................

Climate Literacy Hunter Lovins, Esq, Natural Capitalism, Inc..................................................

Redefining Higher Education For Now

David W. Orr, Oberlin College.......................................................................

Case Study: Coeur D’Alene Eliminates Energy Waste...................................................................................

Section 2:

PLAN

Building a Climate Action Plan Tom Kelly, Ph.D., Sara Cleaves and Brett Pasinella, University of New Hampshire.......................................................................

Case Study: Unwired Environmental Opportunities..................................................................................

Renewing the Past, Sustaining the Future

Jacqueline Johnson, University of Minnesota, Morris...................................

[ NewPage ] ArborWeb™ Gloss 70. Contains 30% recycled fibers and is FSC certified.

Case Study: Lakeland CC on Fast Track to Energy Efficiency.......................................................................

Thoughtfully Positioned to Promote Climate Neutrality Dr. Mary S. Spangler, and Remmele J. Young, J.D., Houston Community College...........................................................................

Sponsored Solutions Profile: A Green Thread Runs Through Campuses..........................................................

Going Green in Hard Economic Times

Andrew Winston, Co-Author of “Green to Gold”............................................

Climate Neutrality Through Energy Efficiency

73 Case Study: Making Cents of Solar................................... 78 Shon Anderson, TAC by Schneider Electric.......................................................

Section 3:

ACT 84

A Reality Check

82 Case Study: Student Life........................................................... 88 Walter Simpson, Author..................................................................................

Reframing Ehrlich Ray C. Anderson, Interface, Inc........................................................................

Financing a Solar Solution An Interview with BP Solar Chief Executive Officer Reyad Fezzani.................

A Holistic Approach to Green Building Doug Gatlin, U.S. Green Building Council.......................................................

90 95 99

The entire content of this publication is protected by copyright, full details are available from the publisher. All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any other form or by any means – electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission of the copyright holder. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of the content of this book, the publisher will accept no responsibility for any errors or omissions, or for any loss or damage, consequential or otherwise, suffered as a result of any material published herein. The publisher assumes no responsibility for statements made by advertisers in business competition, nor assumes responsibility for statements/opinions expressed or implied in the articles of this publication. The viewpoints expressed in the following articles are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, Second Nature, or Kyoto Publishing. No endorsement, implied or expressed is made. These articles represent a collection of viewpoints by various parties and are intended to promote discussion on sustainability.

Reducing Computer Power Consumption

103 Case Study: Solar With a Twist........................................106 Dmitry Shesterin, Faronics..........................................................................

Greening with Virtualization

108

Rob Smoot, VMware....................................................................................

Section 4:

REPORT

Moving Sustainability from Ideas to Action Mona A. Amodeo, Ph.D., idgroup...............................................................

114

Case Study: Indiana U. Moves to Virtualization...................................................................................

120

Good Sports

124 Case Study: Reducing a Carbon Footprint............128 Case Study: Green Paper Procurement.................. 130 Gil Friend, Natural Logic, and Will Duggan, Sports4.org..............................

Green Mountain’s Climb to Climate Neutrality Paul J. Fonteyn, William Throop, Amber Garrard and Kevin Coburn, Green Mountain College............................................................................

132

Case Study: UNT’s New Building Infrastructure..................................................................................

138 Sponsor Directory......................................................................141

Keynote

Higher Education’s True Role Creating a Healthy, Just, and Sustainable Society Anthony D. Cortese, Sc.D., Second Nature

Higher education leaders, especially the 645 college and university presidents in fifty states who are signatories of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), recognize that education for and practicing how to achieve a healthy, just, and sustainable society are critical to meeting high education’s social responsibility of providing the knowledge and educated citizenry for a thriving civil society.

This is arguably the greatest intellectual, moral, and social challenge human civilization has ever faced. It is bigger in scope than the Manhattan Project, the Marshall Plan for Europe, the Apollo Project and the War on Cancer combined. The cultural operating instructions of modern society dictate that if we just work a little harder and smarter and let the market forces run society, all these challenges will work themselves out. We need a transformative shift in the way we think and act. As Einstein said, “We can’t solve today’s problems at the same level of thinking at which they were created.” We currently view the array of health, economic, energy, political, security, social justice, and environmental issues we have as separate, competing, and hierarchical when they are really systemic and interdependent. For example, we do not have environmental problems, per se. We have negative environmental consequences of the way we have designed our social, economic, and political systems. We have a de facto systems design failure. The twenty-first century challenges must be addressed in a systemic, integrated, collaborative, and holistic fashion.

Higher education is facing its greatest challenge in meeting its responsibility because humanity is at an unprecedented crossroads. Despite all the work we have done on environmental protection, especially in Western countries, all living systems are in long-term and increasingly rapid decline. We are severely disrupting the stability of the climate that made human progress to date possible, and there are huge social, economic, and public health challenges worldwide. This is happening with 25 percent of the world’s population consuming between 70 percent to 80 percent of the world’s resources. The crucial question for all of humanity is: How will we ensure that current and future humans will be healthy, that we have strong, secure, thriving communities, and economic opportunity for all in a world that will have Unfortunately, the educational system is reinforc9 billion people, and that plans to increase eco- ing the current unhealthy, inequitable, and unsusnomic output by a factor of four or five by 2050? tainable path that society is pursuing. As David

Orr has said, the problem is not in education, it is of education. This is not intentional: it is because of deeply held beliefs that humans are the dominant species and separate from the rest of nature, the predominance of disciplinary learning and an implicit assumption that the Earth will be the gift that keeps on giving, providing the resources and assimilating our wastes and negative impacts ad infinitum.

Hope and Possibility

example, the best estimates of the true life-cycle health, social, and ecological cost of a gallon of gasoline is between $8 and $12. As a result, the average American does not know that through the economic system, we consume the equivalent of our body weight in solid materials daily, more than 94 percent of which goes to waste before we ever see the product or the service. For example, it takes about 5,000–6,000 pounds of material, most of which went to waste before use, to make a laptop computer. As a result, we practice a kind of group self-deception about the impact of our daily living. As we all know, we measure what we value, and we manage what we measure.

Imagine a society in which all present and future humans are healthy and have their basic needs met. Imagine future scientists, engineers, and business people designing technology and economic activities that sustain the natural environment and enhance human health and well-being operating completely on solar/renewable energy. Imagine an industrial system in which the concept of “waste” is eliminated because every waste product is a raw material or nutrient for another species or activity, or returned into the cycles of nature. This is the concept of biomimicry: learning from and imitating nature. Imagine that we are managing human activities in a way that uses natural resources only at the rate that they can self-regenerate, reflecting the ideas embodied in sustainable forestry, fishing, and agriculture. By doing so, we could live off nature’s “interest,” not its “capital,” for generations to come.

So imagine that we are making all these impacts visible (an important role of higher education) and everyone has accurate information on lifecycle health, social, and environmental costs of all resources and products.

Imagine that we know where all resources come from and where all waste goes. Our current ecological, health, and social footprint is largely invisible to most of us and is almost completely absent in the price of products. Currently, the price is the proverbial tip of the cost iceberg. For

Consider these ideas as the design principles of a healthy, just, and sustainable society—principles based on a human consciousness in which we apply the Golden Rule to our dealings with all current and unborn humans, as well with the rest of life that evolved on Earth. To work, these

The current educational system is reinforcing the current unhealthy, inequitable, and unsustainable path that society is pursuing.

principles must become the basis for society’s economic and governance framework.

experiential, inquiry-based learning and realworld problem-solving on the campus and in the larger community. Higher education would pracCan we do this? Absolutely. Because we must. As tice sustainability in operations, planning, facility we know, necessity is the mother of invention. design, purchasing, and investments connected Besides, some of it is happening in virtually every with the formal curriculum. Higher education sector in society. There is a growing consensus would form partnerships with local and regional among business, government, labor, and other communities to help make them sustainable as leaders that a clean, green economy based on an integral part of higher education’s mission these principles is the best way to restore Ameri- and the student experience. can economic leadership, create millions of jobs, and improve national security. And that is the The Higher Education Response only way to have all current and future humans As you will see throughout this report, there has survive and thrive. been exponential growth in distinct programs related to the environmental dimension of susThe Role of Higher Education tainability in higher education in the last decade. What if higher education were to take a leader- Exciting environmental studies and graduate ship role, as it did in the space race and the war programs in every major scientific, engineeron cancer, in preparing students, and providing ing and social-science discipline, business, law, the information and knowledge to achieve public health, ethics, and religion are abundant a just and sustainable society? What would and growing. Progress on modeling sustainhigher education look like? A college or university ability has grown at an even faster rate. Higher would operate as a fully integrated community education has embraced programs for energy that models social and biological sustainability and water conservation, renewable energy, waste itself and in its interdependence with the local, minimization and recycling, green buildings and regional and global community. purchasing, alternative transportation, local and organic food growing and “sustainable” The educational experience would be aligned purchasing—saving both the environment and with principles of sustainability. The context of money. The rate of increase is unmatched by any learning would make the human/environment in- other sector of society. The student environmental terdependence, values, and ethics a seamless and movement is the most well-organized, largest, central part of teaching of all the disciplines. The and most sophisticated student movement since content of learning would reflect interdisciplinary the anti-war movement of the 1960s. systems thinking, dynamics, and analysis for all majors and disciplines with the same lateral rigor Unfortunately, higher education is doing a poor job in across as the vertical rigor within the disciplines. the health, social, and economic dimensions of susThe process of education would emphasize active, tainability. The overwhelming majority of graduates

know little about the importance of sustainability or how to lead their personal and professional lives aligned with sustainability principles. The American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment In the last three years, there have been some large and encouraging shifts in higher education that lead many colleagues, as well as my self, to believe that we may be approaching a tipping point in the orientation of higher education at sometime in the near future. One of the most significant of these shifts is the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment.

•

In December 2006, twelve college and university • presidents working with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), ecoAmerica and Second Nature, launched the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). The ACUPCC is a high-visibility, joint, and individual commitment to address global climate disruption through actions to reduce and eventually neutralize greenhouse gas emissions, and to develop the capability of students to help all of society do the same. They recognized that global climate disruption represents a fundamental barrier to creating a healthy, just, and economically and environmentally sustainable society.

are from heating and cooling in buildings, electricity usage, commuting transportation, and official airline travel by administrators, faculty, and staff. Within two years, set a target date and interim milestones for becoming climate neutral. Each school has the flexibility to do it on its own schedule and in its own way. Take immediate steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by choosing two from a list of seven short-term actions. Make sustainability an integral part of the curriculum and educational experience of all students. In the long run, the greatest impact of higher education is what we teach. Make the action plan, inventory, and progress reports publicly available. This provides the critical accountability necessary to keep continuing focus on living up to the commitment.

leading society to a low carbon, less auto-dependent, and circular production economy fits squarely into the educational, research, and public service missions of higher education

The participating presidents have committed their institutions to create a comprehensive institutional action plan to move toward climate neutrality through the following actions: •

As of today, just thirty months later, 645 colleges and universities in all fifty states and the District of Columbia have made this unprecedented Complete a greenhouse gas emissions inven- commitment. They represent 5.7 million students tory within one year. The emissions covered (about 33 percent of the student population) and

include every type of institution from community colleges to the biggest research universities.

The positive impact of collective leadership by a large number of colleges and universities will be huge. Global climate disruption is a global The ACUPCC has just issued its 2008 report sum- problem requiring global solutions of immense marizing the progress to date, and it is publicly proportions. The scope, scale, and speed of the available on www.presidentsclimatecommitment. challenge demand an unprecedented level of org. I am pleased to report that 75 percent of collaboration by all of higher education. Separate the first 400 signatories have submitted their individual action will not work, and is what has greenhouse gas emission inventories, and are gotten us to where we are now. implementing recommended near-term actions, from green building standards to energy-efficient The American College and University Presidents’ purchasing policies to utilizing renewable energy Climate Commitment has fundamentally shifted for electricity. The first climate action plans are higher education’s attention on sustainability coming in ahead of schedule, and the bulk will be from a series of excellent, distinct programs to coming in at the end of 2009. a strategic imperative of presidents, academic officers, business officers, and trustees, becoming a key lens for measuring success. It represents Courageous Leadership a cultural shift to focus on all aspects of social, The ACUPCC is an example of courageous leader- economic, and ecological sustainability. We have ship by college and university leaders. It is the numerous anecdotes about how effective the first effort by any major sector of society to set a commitment has been in raising the importance long-term goal of climate neutrality. The presidents of all sustainability initiatives on campus and in believe that leading society to a low carbon, less the classroom. According to presidents at dozens auto-dependent and circular production economy of colleges and universities, the ACUPCC has fits squarely into the educational, research, and done as much to build a vibrant community, and public service missions of higher education. Today’s a sense of shared purpose across the institutions and tomorrow’s businesses and professionals— as any other initiative in recent memory. architects, engineers, attorneys, business leaders, scientists, urban planners, policy analysts, cultural The participating presidents in the ACUPCC and spiritual leaders, teachers, journalists, advo- believe it is impossible to be a leader in higher cates, activists, and politicians—will need new education without thinking a great deal about knowledge and skills that only higher education the future. Today’s students and their children will can provide on a broad scale. Moreover, presidents experience the worst effects of climate disruption are making this commitment because they can best if we continue business as usual. We are faced provide the moral and strategic direction and con- with the greatest intergenerational equity chalvene all the parts of a college or university to lead lenge in modern history. When we surveyed the the cultural shift to embrace the necessary educa- presidents participating in the ACUPCC in 2007, tion, research, and operational changes needed. the majority said the most important reason for

making the commitment was that it was the right thing to do for the sake of their students and their students’ children and grandchildren. Some have argued that achieving climate neutrality and sustainability is too hard or impossible and that the ACUPCC is not practical or possible. What we must do is make the impossible inevitable. The Earth does not recognize how hard it is for us humans to change. It will respond to the physical changes we cause on its own schedule and in its own ways. It doesn’t have the cognitive ability to decide to wait for us to figure out how we can change to preserve our way of life and ourselves. We are now in the process of breaking away from an old paradigm which, like gravitational pull, will require a great deal of energy, commitment, and perseverance. We can do it if we set our minds to it. When President John F. Kennedy set a goal for man to reach the moon in a decade, our country had no way of knowing if it could be done. But because it was a goal we shared and to which we put our minds, hearts, and our backs, we achieved the goal in nine years and unleashed the scientific and technical revolution that led to so much innovation, from the Internet to materials science, to breakthroughs in medicine that are the basis of life today. We need that kind of leadership today from the great leaders in society, especially in higher education. There are lots of other examples of this kind of bold leadership that pushes the limits of knowledge to go beyond what is possible now. Is this not one of the primary thrusts of higher education?

About the Author: Anthony D. Cortese is the President of Second Nature and a co-organizer of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. He is co-founder of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and co-founder and co-coordinator of the Higher Education Associations Sustainability Consortium. He was formerly the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the first Dean of Environmental Programs at Tufts University. He has a B.S. and M.S. from Tufts and a doctorate from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Section 1:

COMMIT

verb 1. pledge or dedicate to a course, policy, or use. 2. resolve to remain in a long-term emotional relationship. Making a commitment is the very first step towards achieving any strategic goal or vision. Once fortitude to reach the goal is in place it will drive all of your actions. The dedication and drive will give you the continued willingness to strive for the end results.

White Paper

Why Policy Change?

Breakthrough progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions is otherwise impossible Don Ryan, Second Nature

Colleges and universities that are developing and implementing climate action plans are blazing trails through new, unexplored territory. Their discoveries, successes, lessons learned and false starts in finding and implementing more sustainable solutions will help other sectors of society meet the climate challenge. Without exception, colleges and universities begin this journey working within a legal, regulatory, and financial system shaped by decades of cheap fossil fuels. In some cases, innovative solutions can be realized within the existing framework. In other cases, meaningful progress requires changing laws, regulations, and policies; developing new funding sources and financing mechanisms; and retuning economic incentives. Second Nature is working concertedly for policy change to help colleges and universities achieve climate neutrality and provide broader leadership in sustainable solutions. Meeting the climate challenge requires public policies at all levels to encourage and reward renewable energy, innovative technologies, creative funding mechanisms, smart consumer choices, and advances in research and education. Breakthrough progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissionsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;on a scale that is required to meet the planetary climate challengeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;is impossible without policy change.

The hundreds of colleges and universities that are confronting the climate challenge are a powerful force for change. First, these institutionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; practical experience in developing and implementing climate action plans serves as an early detection system to identify legal and regulatory barriers, outdated standards, unnecessary requirements, misdirected economic incentives and other institutional obstacles. Second, the well-informed and highly motivated individuals who are working to move colleges and universities towards sustainability represent a powerful force for broader policy change within our democratic system of government. Third, U.S. colleges and universities produce three million graduates a year, all of whom needs sufficient grounding in sustainability to prepare them to participate fully in the cleanenergy economy as consumers, workers, business owners, investors and voters.

Commitment to Policy Change As a nonprofit public interest organization, Second Nature advocates for policy changes that will drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and advance the goal of creating a healthy, just, and sustainable society.1 Higher education is an important leverage point to advance these goals. Second Nature is especially committed to securing policy changes that

enable colleges and universities to play a leadership role in meeting the climate challenge.

ACUPCC and Policy Issues

Advocacy for policy change for climate solutions To bring about vital policy changes, Second is a central part of Second Nature’s mission. In Nature is pursuing five reinforcing strategies: contrast, the ACUPCC is a network that brings together more than 645 colleges and universities 1. Identify needed policy changes to reduce that are committed to meeting the climate chalgreenhouse gas emissions and facilitate higher lenge. As a network, the ACUPCC does not genereducation’s leadership in sustainability. ally advocate for specific policy changes. Second Nature’s policy alerts provide the opportunity for 2. Inform college and university presidents and college and university presidents, as well as other other members of the higher education com- individuals and organizations involved in higher munity about important policy issues related to sustainability by analyzing and highlighting key policy issues through a variety of means, including: convening experts to address key issues, developing white papers to focus discussion and Meeting the climate debate, and disseminating information to practichallenge requires public tioners, policymakers, and stakeholders. 3. Issue periodic policy alerts to call to the attention of college and university presidents and other members of the higher education community timely opportunities to support important policy changes.

policies at all levels to encourage and reward renewable energy, innovative technologies, creative funding mechanisms, smart consumer choices, and advances in research and education.

4. Build relationships with an ever-growing number of individuals at all levels in the higher education community—presidents, government relations liaisons, business officers, provosts, administrators, staff, faculty, students, and asso- education, to decide what action to take individuciation staff—who are willing to actively support ally to influence policy-makers or to otherwise engage in important public policy issues. To public policies that advance sustainability. increase emphasis on public policy, the ACUPCC 5. Educate, inform, and lobby federal policymak- steering committee created a policy subcommiters in the executive and legislative branches tee to work with Second Nature staff, identify on policy issues that are important to reducing important policy issues, and encourage individual greenhouse gas emissions and advancing higher college and university presidents to engage more actively in the policy arena. education’s leadership in sustainability.

A Comprehensive Policy Agenda To date, leaders in higher education have actively engaged in federal policy issues that directly relate to increased federal funding to help colleges and universities advance sustainability. Early successes have included authorization of the Department of Education’s University Sustainability Program1 and Department of Energy loans and grants for energy retrofits of elementary, secondary and higher education facilities.2 Many leaders in higher education are working now to have these new programs funded as well as to have Congress dedicate one percent of the proceeds of federal cap-and-trade allowances

U.S. colleges and universities produce 3,000,000 graduates a year, every one of which needs sufficient grounding in sustainability to prepare them to participate fully in the clean-energy economy to support a broad range of education activities to prepare American citizens to meet the challenges of climate change. Although increased federal funding to help colleges and universities provide leadership in sustainability is certainly important, this is only one thin slice of the public policy pie. Higher education leaders are in position to provide broader policy leadership in changing the forces that shape the role of

research and education and in actually reducingcarbon emissions.

Building Pathways for Education Sustainability Since college and university faculty ultimately determine the content of the curriculum, responsibility for ensuring that every graduate understands the principles of sustainability rests primarily with academic institutions themselves. At the same time, changes in external policies, programs, and accreditation criteria can encourage transdisciplinary learning and other curriculum and co-curriculum changes that embrace sustainability, including: • Increased federal funding for interdiscliplinary research, such as the National Science Foundation’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research program • Increased federal funding to revise course curricula to integrate sustainability into all disciplines • Significant increases in federal funding for faculty development in the principles of sustainability in all disciplines • Increased emphasis by federal grant-making agencies on sustainability, disparate impacts, social equity, and regional and communitywide impacts • Changes in higher education accreditation systems to place much greater emphasis on sustainability and interdisciplinary education • Increased federal funding for green jobs training • Research that will lead to greener technologies for energy production, efficiency, and waste management.

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Policy change to reduce carbon emissions is needed in a variety of subject areas, and levers for change encompass a broad spectrum of instruments and interventions. Significantly reducing carbon emissions will require fundamental changes in every sector of society, including the following: • Weatherization and energy-efficiency retrofits of existing buildings and new construction standards for high performing buildings • Increased renewable energy sources for electricity production • Smart grid improvements in electricity transmission and delivery systems • New automotive vehicle technologies and expanded mass transit • More energy-efficient industrial processes and agricultural practices • More energy-efficient land use patterns • Improved waste management • Water conservation. Technological innovation is important to accelerating progress in each of these areas; however, technology usually is not the limiting factor. In most cases, the needed technologies already exist, but their wide implementation is impeded by economic, structural, and institutional barriers. Overcoming these obstacles requires policy change through a broad range of instruments and interventions, including: • Capping and reducing carbon emissions • Mandating renewable energy standards for electricity generation

• Public funding for research, development and demonstration of new technologies • Public financing and subsidies for adopting improved technologies (e.g., bonds, revolving loan funds, and zero-interest loans) • Pricing interventions (e.g., variable time-ofuse rates, and public benefit charges) • Tax policy to encourage more efficient technologies (e.g., income tax credits) • Negotiated rule making to simplify regulations (e.g., the patchwork of energy regulations that complicate the diffusion of renewable energy technologies) • Minimum regulatory standards (e.g., CAFE standards, green building codes, smart growth land-use regulations) • Incentives for manufacturers and consumers to exceed minimum standards • Removing regulatory barriers (e.g., outdated building codes) • Government purchasing policies to increase demand for new technologies • Mandatory labeling and campaigns to educate consumers (e.g., ENERGY STAR).

Second Nature Invites Your Suggestions Using the general framework outlined above as a starting point, Second Nature plans to develop a policy agenda to highlight the need for important policy changes to reduce carbon emissions and strengthen higher education’s leadership in sustainability. Initially, emphasis will be placed on national policy issues related to implementing solutions to the climate challenge.

To develop this policy agenda, Second Nature is collaborating with other organizations and higher education associations that are committed to sustainability. In addition, Second Nature invites college and university administrators, staff, faculty, and students to identify policy changes that would instrumentally advance progress towards sustainability. If your efforts to transform campus operations are hamstrung by obsolete regulations, inadequate funding, economic penalties, or other significant obstacles, we urge you to suggest specific policy changes to remedy the problem by emailing dryan@secondnature.org. Second Nature plans to regularly update its policy agenda based on feedback and input from college and university presidents, practitioners, advocates, and stakeholders.

in December 2009. Second Nature encourages all those who are working on sustainability in higher education to urge their elected representatives to support enactment of comprehensive federal climate legislation in 2009.

About the Author: As vice president for policy for Second Nature, Don Ryan directs the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s policy and advocacy work in Washington, D.C. Over the past three decades, Ryan has been involved in policy change on national environmental, affordable housing, and transportation issues from different perspectives. To view footnotes please visit www.climateneutralcampus.com

The Enormous Opportunity at Hand Federal climate legislation now pending in the U.S. Congress offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity for policy change to reduce carbon emissions and place the U.S. on a path towards sustainability. In June 2009, the House of Representativesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; approval of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) represented an historic step forward.3 Based on principles set forth by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a broad-based coalition of industry and environmental groups, this bill caps and reduces carbon emissions, guarantees a shift to renewable energy, and relies on market forces for least-cost solutions. Action by the Senate on a comparable bill is vital to shifting the U.S. towards sustainability and building momentum for the international climate conference in Copenhagen

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White Paper

The Sustainable Campus as a Learning Lab A sustainable culture for a college or university involves infrastructure, community, and learning. Mitchell Thomashow, Unity College

It’s both rewarding and inspiring to observe all of the renewed interest in sustainability, especially in higher education. However, given the scope of environmental and economic challenges, it’s crucial that we reiterate our commitment to sustainable approaches as a comprehensive educational vision.

I propose that a deeply integrated, values-based approach to sustainability must thoroughly penetrate all aspects of campus life. Let’s remember that sustainability is a response to three extraordinary and interconnected challenges—biodiversity loss, species extinction, and climate change. This response entails more than LEED buildings, innovative technologies, and cool new courses. It involves all aspects of campus life, including infrastructure, community, and learning. College and university leadership have a profound responsibility—how to use the campus as an educational opportunity to promote

sustainability awareness. We are all sustainability educators now! I propose that a deeply integrated, values-based approach to sustainability must thoroughly penetrate all aspects of campus life. For higher education, there are nine integrated elements that comprise a sustainable culture. As you survey these nine elements, consider how each one has a dynamic curricular potential, and how you might use each element as a teaching opportunity for all campus constituencies. Broadly conceived, a sustainable culture for a college or university involves infrastructure, community, and learning. The infrastructure challenge involves (1) energy, (2) food, and (3) materials. Energy encompasses the carbon budget, renewable energy sources, and conservation efforts—all aspects of the energy system for a campus, from how the buildings are powered and heated to the specific daily, behavioral choices of the campus community. This awareness is crucial for achieving zero-carbon initiatives and meeting the goals of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment.

Food involves all aspects of the food production and consumption system, including the use of local and/or organic foods, whether food is grown on campus, and the extent to which the campus supports a sustainable food system. Do the cafeterias and cafés incorporate an ecologically sound approach to dining?

mental well-being? Is there a correlation between campus health and the local ecosystem? The learning challenge emphasizes (7) curriculum, (8) aesthetics, and (9) interpretation.

Curriculum is the ground floor of any college’s sustainability efforts. Are sustainability principles Materials embody the raw matter of various con- (from economics to ecology) thoroughly infused struction and procurement processes, including in all aspects of the curriculum, from freshman the supply chain, recycling, reuse, and toxicity. Is experiences through professional schools? Are there a seamless connection between the eco- there specific programs to train sustainability logical landscape and the campus buildings? Are practitioners and researchers, tailored to the spelife cycle criteria applied to materials use? cial strengths and qualities of the institution? The community challenge involves (4) governance, Aesthetics suggests that sustainability initiatives (5) investment, and (6) wellness. should be implemented with the arts in mind. Are there vivid, imaginative, and interesting Governance reflects decision-making processes, exhibits/art projects/installations? Are the visual including budget preparation and approval, staff and musical arts utilized in planning the campus and faculty participation, the board of trustees, sustainability landscape? and all stakeholders. Do sustainability efforts include multiple decision-makers? Are they strongly Interpretation means that the campus should supported by the campus leadership? Is there serve the broadest possible educational function clarity of purpose regarding mission, account- in calling attention to its sustainability efforts. ability, responsibility, and agency? Here is the perfect place to exercise educational leadership—to use a campus as a venue for chalInvestment includes all aspects of a college’s lenging instructional opportunities. Are visitors impact on the finances of the regional community. to the college adequately informed about the Does the college serve as a multiplier for regional campus sustainability initiatives? Does the camsustainability efforts? Does it support sustainable pus have interesting and evocative signage that business practices? Is its endowment invested in performs a teaching function? ecologically responsible businesses?

A Broader Discussion is Neccessary

Wellness involves the stress level, general health, physical fitness, and attitude of the organization. The purpose of these guidelines is to open a Does the college promote healthy living? Does discussion regarding the whole system of a the community emphasize its own physical and sustainable culture. It’s not enough just to build a

few LEED certified buildings (as admirable as that is!). Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not enough just to have a great sustainability course for freshmen. We need to empower and inspire entirely new ways of thinking. These nine elements imply the depth of our challenge. The college campus is the best place to exemplify these possibilities and to inspire a whole new culture of sustainable practice, living, and thinking. Here are some rules of thumb to consider in thinking about the educational dimensions of these nine elements.

Imagine the educational potential of a campus whose landscape is totally geared towards sustainability. The Campus is a Sustainability Landscape Every college and university is a physical landscape with an ecological setting. Its history and culture are deeply reflected in its buildings, grounds, and curriculum. The campus landscape makes a profound impression on everyone who uses it. We admire beautiful campuses because they inspire us. Imagine the educational potential of a campus whose landscape is totally geared towards sustainabilityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;transparent and innovative use of local or recycled materials, building designs and retrofits that reflect a visible commitment to conservation, edible landscaping and gardens interspersed on grassy lawns or urban street corners, or dormitories with rooftop gardens. What

a great way to involve students (and their families), staff, and faculty in learning about sustainability through their daily life routines and habits.

The Sustainable Landscape is a Learning Laboratory Every sustainability initiative is an educational research experiment. We are fortunate to be living in a time when there are dozens of imaginative, technical, and interesting proposed sustainability solutions. Which of these are most appropriate for our campuses? How do we know? Who is taking notes and gathering the data? Consider some of the ways that a campus is involved in sustainability research: materials science, renewable energy, ecological architecture, organic agriculture, urban policy, ecological economics, or environmental perception, just for starters. The list of research programs is endless, reflecting how the sustainability agenda is inherently intrinsic to just about any subject. All of these research programs can be visible, tangible, and totally integrated into all aspects of campus infrastructure. They should involve students and visitors. They should invite comment and critique. The campus will then be perceived as a dynamic learning laboratory for sustainability initiatives.

The Sustainable Learning Laboratory is the Core Curriculum These research experiments are not just theoretical. They are deeply intertwined in the everyday life of students and faculty. It starts before students even arrive on campus when they are asked to consider the ecological end energy impact of what they

bring to campus. It continues through freshman orientation, when they are introduced to what it means to live sustainably and consider the requisite contradictions and challenges. It continues with a freshman course that introduces basic concepts in sustainability. All majors have some sustainability component built into the curriculum. These efforts are supported with residential life practices, and illustrated by immersing the students in the various campus sustainability experiments. A similar comprehensive approach can be applied to nonresidential colleges, online schools, or institutions that specialize in adult learners.

important aspect of higher education. These are important trends in all colleges and universities regardless of their size. Arizona State University has made great strides in implementing sustainability principles throughout the institution.

Yet we often forget the spirit of sustainability is also celebratory and evocative.

There will always be exciting philosophical debates about what students should know, reflecting the strengths and visions of diverse Let me reveal my bias as an educator, and as approaches to learning. Clearly, many educasomeone who has always loved to read and tors are now making a persuasive case for why study. The most compelling lessons in life come sustainability concepts (however defined) reprefrom the ubiquitous daily routines and behaviors. sent core knowledge for a twenty-first century Our common habits (for better or worse) are the planetary citizen. Visit the website of AASHE, the building blocks of a comprehensive worldview. Association for the Advancement of Sustainability When you disrupt those routines with different in Higher Education, for firsthand exposure to expectations and structures, you are most likely to this dialogue. What I am suggesting is that we engender deep learning, and then, in turn, build shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mistake that dialogue for the larger new routines and behaviors. challenge of also thinking about what we do and how we think. Sustainability is no longer a A sustainability curriculum is empty if it is primarily specialized interest, relegated to the green corner theoretical. However, it is shallow if it lacks study, of campus. It is fundamental to how we think reflection, and substance. Students watch what we about all aspects of learning. do and how we think. Our colleges and universities make the most lasting impressions in that regard. Sustainability Teaches Wonder Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why work colleges such as Warren Wilson and Legacy and Berea have such an extraordinary impact on their students, or why schools like Unity College Much of the culture surrounding sustainability (and so many others) emphasize hands-on learn- emphasizes the importance of ecological limits. ing, or why service learning has become such an Hence the concept of stern sacrifice often travels

Core Curriculum Emphasizes What We Do, Think and Know

with the sustainability stereotype. Surely discussions about material simplicity, frugality, affluence, and conservation are crucial for college campuses. Yet we often forget that the spirit of sustainability is also celebratory and evocative. We wish to call attention to the magnificence and mystery of the biosphere, the intricacy and wonder of biodiversity, and the sacredness of life.

tools, books, and ideas about community, natural history, land use, learning, and whole systems thinking. In retrospect, it was my first academic introduction to the concept of sustainability. I realize that it provided me with a personal and professional guide for how I wanted to live my life, and the work I wanted to do.

In many respects, my commitment as a college Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great Jewish rabbi president is an effort to implement this same and philosopher, wrote that â&#x20AC;&#x153;indifference to the vision in higher education. Only now the stakes sublime wonder of living is the root cause of are so much higher. I hope you find that this article sin.â&#x20AC;?As educators, we wish more than anything provides you with ideas and possibilities for your that our students learn to love learning, that they campus and that your approach to these issues is internalize a spirit of investigation and curiosity, deeply embedded in your values. That is the essence that they see great virtue in critical thinking and of effective and enduring educational leadership. reflective inquiry. Most importantly, that they take joy in the educational process. Perhaps this is the most important element of our common effort. Sustainability teaches you about your place in the community, your ecological and evolutionary heritage, and the legacy of humanity. We are Pleistocene creatures, not many generations removed from the Ice Age, now surrounded by a complex technological infrastructure of our own making. We are trying to figure out how to take care of the planet, as trite as that may sound. That remains the essence of our challenge.

Sustainability is Deeply Embedded in Values and Vision Forty years ago, when I was a junior in college (1969) I discovered the Whole Earth Catalog. I was enamored and delighted with its vision. Framed with a stunning photograph of the Earth on its cover, it contained a brilliant resource guide with

About the Author: Mitchell S. Thomashow is the author of Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist and Bringing the Biosphere Home: Learning to Perceive Global Envionmental Change, both published by The MIT Press. He is currently the President of Unity College in Unity, Maine, an environmental, liberal arts college. He was previously Chair of the Doctoral Program in Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England. Thomashow is the founder of Hawk and Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the ACUPCC.

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Green beyond Food

Chartwells is committed to sustainable building, design and foodservice operations on college campuses. Our greener campus dining facilities contribute to a sustainable future by providing great food, healthy options and exceptional service in an environmentally friendly arena.

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Case Study

Bentley Deploys Asset Management The university looks to control costs and its carbon footprint Case Study Sponsored by Infor EAM

Located near Boston, MA, Bentley University is dedicated to preparing a new kind of business leader—one with the deep technical skills, broad global perspective, and high ethical standards required in an ever-changing world. To accomplish this mission, Bentley offers a unique blend of business and liberal arts education with a strong foundation in technology, providing students with relevant, practical, and transferable skills. Its wide range of programs addresses functional areas including accountancy, finance, marketing, and management.

By predicting maintenance, we see big reductions in our electrical consumption and carbon footprint—and we’re saving costs.

experience, and enjoy a vibrant campus teeming with athletic, social, and cultural opportunities. Several years ago, Bentley University’s facilities management department sought a solution to automate its business processes. The university’s main objective was to better control operating costs while maintaining a first-class campus. Ideally, the school wanted to deploy an asset management system to help automate all facilities management processes, including work order management and the cumbersome annual dorm inspections. Dorm room inspections involved a time-consuming process of logging invalid inspections, keying that data into a system, and issuing paper work orders.

Bentley turned to Infor EAM for a web-based asset management system, drastically reducing the manual overhead and time required to process work orders. A few years later, Bentley embarked on a journey to become climate neutral. Toward that end, the university created a sustainability task force to evaluate all campus assets and deBentley’s 5,000 students receive preparation in termine comprehensive ways to reduce its carbon the arts and sciences, interact with a faculty of footprint. When the task force concluded that nearly 500 experienced full- and part-time teach- electricity usage on campus was a big contributor ers with real-world research and consulting to greenhouse gases, the university began the

quest for an automated solution to reduce electri- only the complex dorm room inspection process, but also the 35,000 work orders that we process cal consumption. yearly using Infor EAM. The program has helped “Bentley is committed to reducing its electrical us save enormous costs, and we’ve had a great consumption by 4 percent in the next three experience working with Infor.” fiscal years,” says Kerri Roche, the university’s assistant director for sustainability and energy. When Bentley turned again to its partner to look “To achieve this goal, we needed to make as for ways to reduce energy consumption and many improvements as possible throughout the carbon emissions, one of the targeted areas was the university’s preventative maintenance system. entire campus.”

Getting Business Specific

“We run a calendar-based PM (preventative maintenance) system, and we started to question its efficiency,” says Roche. “We discovered a tool to help us not only meet our energy and emissions goals, but also save money. When Infor came to us, we were looking for ways to save electricity and integrate our automated building control system with an asset sustainability version of Infor EAM.”

A business university with heavy emphasis on technology, Bentley decided to seek a proven solution to meet its current and future needs. Patty Patria, director of enterprise initiatives, explains, “We organized a team from IT, facilities, and other areas, and evaluated best-of-breed facilities tools. Infor EAM proved to be the best—the most robust and easiest to set up and customize.” But Infor EAM Asset Sustainability does much more. It’s now helping Bently run its preventative Implementation of Infor EAM began by identify- maintenance on a predictive level, instead of a ing business processes involving the greatest calendar-based PM system. “By predicting mainchange for Bentley, Patria says. “We knew that tenance, we see big reductions in our electrical the Infor application was the Ferrari of EAM consumption and carbon footprint, and we’re software, and we wanted to customize the in- saving costs.” terface to make it easiest for our users. With the help of Infor support staff and using built-in EAM Real-time performance monitoring and alerting is capabilities to automate routine tasks, we created a part of Infor EAM that ties the Bentley building a simple product for facilities staff. And from an control system into its asset management stratIT standpoint, the special configuration and cus- egy. These capabilities anticipate failures before tomization we incorporated would also transfer they happen. Notes Roche, “Our building automawith each upgrade, which makes our lives much tion system has several exhaust hoods, and one easier.” Patria concludes; “The Infor EAM solu- hood belt breaks all the time. We know from tion was up and running smoothly in about four experience that once this exhaust hood starts to months because we faced a critical dorm inspec- draw less than four amperes, a failure is imminent tion process within that time. We automated not within the following week or two. But previously

we couldn’t always catch the failures before they “reads” the room or the fire extinguisher. Using a would happen.” book containing barcode entries, they can quickly and easily scan the status of rooms, work orders, Infor EAM takes the amperage readings from the or equipment. It’s a great tool to automate the exhaust hoods once per day, and if the reading capture of ad hoc data.” drops to less than four amperes, it automatically generates a work order to change the belts. “We “Once barcoding is complete, we take the mobile now save ourselves from that failure every time,” tool and synchronize it with the database, allowsays Roche. ing us to transfer the inspection and/or ad hoc work order generation data into our Infor EAM Infor EAM enables Bentley to strengthen the tool,” Patia says. “We also plan to improve our traditional calendar-based PM system with pre- already automated dorm inspection process with dictive maintenance on assets, resulting in greater Infor’s ad hoc inspection technology.” equipment efficiency. “Experts say that predictive maintenance helps organizations save 4 percent Infor EAM has helped Bentley University to: to 10 percent in electrical charges,” says Roche. • Automate dorm room inspections and processing of 35,000 work orders per year “Sustainability and green initiatives are important • Significantly reduce electrical consumption in higher education, and especially at Bentley Uniand carbon emissions versity,” says Roche. “We take this commitment • Reduce equipment failures through predicseriously, incorporating it into all aspects of the tive maintenance college—from transportation to waste manage- • Capture ad hoc asset data quickly and easily ment, recycling, even into our academic courses. using mobile tool with barcoding feature With Infor EAM, we’ve been able to reduce our • Streamline and upgrade work management electrical consumption and our carbon footprint processes, reducing training and IT costs while saving money. And we’re really excited about what it can do for us next.” Bentley University foresees several other applications using Infor EAM Asset Sustainability to Another important reason that Bentley chose streamline its processes and reduce energy conInfor EAM is because of its mobile tool. This tool sumption. “We want to automate our inventory allows Bentley facility staff to use ruggedized process and barcode our stockroom using barhand-held devices with barcode scanning. For fire code scanners,” says Patria. “We’ll receive stock safety inspections and ad hoc work order inspec- through hand-held devices, and do all of our stock tions, facility people walk around the 42 campus takes by barcoding. This will save so much time buildings, all of which have individual barcodes for our inventory control people and help run that on every room. Says Patria, “If they find a problem process more efficiently.” in a room or with a fire extinguisher, they click the barcode button using the handheld device, which

White Paper

Climate Literacy An imperative for survival Hunter Lovins, Esq., Natural Capitalism, Inc.

Higher education is failing in duty to its stakeholders and to society. Even universities pledged under the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) to make their campuses climate neutral and integrate sustainability education into their curriculum have a long way to go. This became clear when Congressional Representatives applauded those who claimed that global warming is a hoax. Sure, few would argue that remedial classes for Congress is the job of higher education, but far too many Americans graduate without understanding the basic science of climate change. In a New York Times op-ed, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, celebrating the political achievement of passing the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill, put it bluntly, “But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases. And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason— treason against the planet. To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken in the latest climate research. The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected. Ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And accord-

ing to a number of recent studies, catastrophe—a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable—can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.” If climate deniers are guilty of treason, so are universities who fail to ensure that all graduates grasp the definitive scientific consensus that if we fail to act immediately to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, we are risking the survival of the human race.1

If climate deniers are guilty of treason, so are universities who fail to ensure that all graduates grasp the definitive scientific consensus…we are risking the survival of the human race. No More Business as Usual Worse, the global climate crisis is only one of many drivers of change now confronting the planet. Every major ecosystem on Earth is in peril. In 2005, the United Nations released the Millennium Ecological Assessment (MEA)

describing how the rising human population has polluted or over-exploited two-thirds of the ecological systems on which life depends. Authored by 1,360 experts in ninety-five nations, the study drew on twenty-two national science academies around the world. How many college graduates even know of it?

of Africa if global warming is not mitigated. The UN projects billions of deaths in the decades to come if we are not successful in mitigation. This is not some future scenario. Nine out of ten disasters now recorded are climate-related, and the number of disasters has doubled to more than 400 annually over the past two decades. John Holmes, the under-secretary general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief coordinator, states, “Climate change is not some futuristic scenario. It’s happening today, and millions of people are already suffering the consequences.”4

“At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning,” states the MEA. “Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.” United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan com- There are other formidable drivers of change facing mented that the study shows how “the very basis the future: the well-recognized F’s of finances, food, and fuel; water scarcity; vulnerable infrastructure; for life on Earth is declining at an alarming rate.”2 shifting demographics; the impact of globalization; In 1998, a survey of professional biologists and what is now known as “the sustainability concluded that 69 percent believe that the imperative.” Collectively, these forces will change “sixth extinction” we are now living through is everything about how we live and how business happening more rapidly and affecting a wider is conducted. Transformation of how students range of biodiversity than any of the previous learn, what they learn and what they then do with five. It is possible, the report stated, that we will that knowledge is not only the route to increased lose between 30 percent and 70 percent of the prosperity, but is also an imperative for the world’s planet’s biodiversity within a time span of only nations and businesses, and academic institutions. twenty to thirty years. The difference from all previous extinctions is that this one is due to the Compounding Crises actions of one species, humanity, which claims to be the only one endowed with intelligence and Even the global economic collapse of 2008–09 consciousness.3 We’re playing for keeps and the stems from the fundamental unsustainability of stakes include survival for millions of species, the global system. A deeper look into this latest perhaps our very own. meltdown, in which $50 trillion evaporated worldwide, shows that the breakdown of ecologiThe worldwide loss of environmental stability cal systems played a significant role. drives poverty, inequity, and social injustices, making them further drivers of change. The UN now Worldwide, the economic system digs up, puts admits that the conflict in Darfur is caused by through various resource-crunching processes, climate change, and is the future for life in much and then turns into waste more than a half-

trillion tons of raw material, water, and emissions. Of all this stuff, less than 1 percent is ever embodied in a product and is still there six month after sale. All the rest is waste. Pervasive resource inefficiency, exorbitant waste in production, and the continued devaluation of natural and human capital have put the global economic system in peril.5

these drivers. One of these is the ability to stare such devastation in the face and keep working. Paul Hawken, delivering a commencement address in spring 2009, stated, “My answer is always the same. If you look at the science about what is happening on Earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this Earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t Jonathan Porritt, advisor to the Prince of Wales, optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.”7 warns, “People seem blind to the fact that the causes of the economic collapse are exactly the same as those behind today’s ecological crisis— and behind accelerating climate change.” The UK government’s chief scientific adviser, John In an increasingly perilous Beddington, predicts, “A ‘perfect storm’ of food social, economic, and shortages, scarce water and high-cost energy will environmental climate, hit the global economy before 2030. Factor in ac“proper training”—the celerating climate change, and this lethal cocktail presumptive role of higher leads to public unrest, cross-border conflict, and education—means equipping mass migration—in other words, an economic and students with not only this political collapse that will make today’s economic core literacy, but also with the recession seem very tame indeed.” Porritt agrees, skill sets necessary to tackle but predicts that the storm would hit by 2020.6

these drivers.

Proper Training Required

The response has been unprecedented. UniversiTo avoid catastrophe within these time frames, ties are creating new programs, departments, and it’s too late for K–12 education. Our present positions. They are setting new priorities to meet leaders-in-training must be equipped with the the sustainability literacy imperative and move tools to articulate the challenges at hand, and to the needle. Beginning with starry-eyed freshmen. propose and implement solutions. Since early 2008, more than one in four of the top 300 U.S. schools have incorporated a sustainIn an increasingly perilous social, economic, and ability awareness/educational component into environmental climate, “proper training”—the orientation programs for incoming students.8 presumptive role of higher education—means equipping students with not only this core literacy, In 2005, three “sustainability-focused programs” but also with the skill sets necessary to tackle existed across all U.S. higher education. Now the

Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE)9 lists more than 66 programs. The AASHE Digest also lists at least forty institutions (up from sixteen in 2007) that hired sustainability officers, supporting staff, and professors.

The most attractive and rewarding careers are those working to accelerate sustainability.

Schools that long ago prioritized energy- and resource-efficiency measures are better placed to battle budget constraints as their investments return substantial paybacks that enhance bottom lines. The University of Michigan, for example, now enjoys $9.7 million in annual savings. Over a sixyear period, Michigan’s in-house energy management department completed efficiency projects in more than 120 campus buildings, including lighting upgrades, efficient appliance procurement, adjustments to mechanical systems, and environmental control systems. The EPA named the school its 2004 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year.11

The University of British Columbia worked with BC Hydro to complete its three-year “ecotrek” Schools that acted early on the sustainability project. In 2006, the school saved more than $3.8 and literacy imperative are gaining first-mover million in energy and water, with an additional advantages, including increased funding; the $2.6 million in savings expected annually. The ability to secure the best and brightest faculty, largest retrofit in Canadian history, the project staff, and students; and financial gains generated cuts more than 16,000 tons of CO2 emissions by investments in energy efficiency, just to name annually, far exceeding the university’s Kyoto a few. Sustainability leaders are reducing costs, Protocol targets.12 attracting students, delivering a higher quality educational experience, and bringing in money. The Business Case Biofuels research at Oklahoma State University garnered $20 million; $15 million went to Nevada schools for climate change research; $5 million for renewable energy technologies at the University of Texas, Austin; $4 million in funding for solar research at Binghamton University. The list of mult-million-dollar projects, grants, and initiatives goes on. An additional thirteen sustainability-themed research centers opened in 2008 alone and plans for thirty-three more were announced.10

for Sustainability

These schools are following the lead of companies around the world that are transforming how they do business. These companies have found that behaving more responsibly to people and the planet is simply a better way to do business.13 Over the past decade, more than one dozen studies have shown that companies that focus on and implement sustainability programs are demonstrating greater profitability than their industry peers.14 Actions taken to make a company more sustainable also make it more profitable and less

exposed to value erosion, and strengthened every aspect of shareholder value. Shareholder value is enhanced when a company cuts its costs, grows top-line sales through innovation, secures better access to capital from the socially responsible investment community, better manages its risks, enhances labor productivity with green buildings, and better manages its supply chains, and stakeholders. This “integrated bottom line” approach shows that companies that implement sustainability programs not only reduce expenses now, but also position themselves for better long-term performance.15 Such businesses enhance government relations, reputation, and brand equity. This increases a company’s ability to attract and retain the best talent; improves communication, creativity, and morale in the workplace; and strengthens stakeholder relations.

months prior to November, 2008 of ninety-nine firms on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the Goldman Sachs list of green companies. The results showed that in sixteen out of the eighteen industries evaluated, businesses deemed “sustainability-focused” outperformed industry peers over three- and six-month periods and were “well protected from value erosion.” In the study period of three months, the differential between the companies with and without a commitment to sustainability was 10 percent, and over six months, the differential was 15 percent. “This performance differential,” the Report stated, “translates to an average of $650 million in market capitalization per company.”19 From 2006 through 2007, companies on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index performed 10 points above the S&P 500.20

These conclusions are borne out by the 2007 Goldman Sachs report,16 showing that companies that are leaders in environmental, social, and The sustainability imperative is good governance policies outperformed the MSCI a matter of survival for colleges world index of stocks by 25 percent since 2005. as well as companies. Seventy-two percent of the companies on the list outperformed industry peers, were financially A 2009 study by Atos Origin S.A. of European healthier, and achieved enduring value.17 companies similarly found that, “There is a strong Companies that made a serious commitment to business case for environmental excellence. Combehave in more sustainable ways fared better, panies with more mature sustainability programs even in the economic collapse, than their peers enjoy higher profit...”21 in the same industry. In 2009, the A.T. Kearney report, Green Winners,18 compared the economic The Sustainability Imperative performance of companies with a commitment to sustainability to companies in the same industry These business results are important for higher without such a sustainability commitment. The education. The sustainability imperative is a matreport tracked stock price performance over six ter of survival for colleges as well as companies.

With upwards of 6 million jobs lost since the December, 2007 recession-declaration, graduates’ futures depend on their ability to speak the language of sustainability and use its tools and principles in the modern marketplace where the most attractive and rewarding careers are increasingly those working to accelerate sustainability. In the years to come, a school’s prominence and rank will be determined by whether its graduates are adequately prepared to engage and promote the solutions that sustainability offers to the challenges facing every conceivable niche of business and society. The continued relevance of U.S. schools as accredited bodies of knowledge will be determined not only by the ability of their graduates to secure jobs in this new realm, but also by whether humans can educate themselves sufficiently and rapidly enough to step back from extinction.

pledge to establish a baseline carbon footprint and cut greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible, but none has yet achieved it. The pursuit of climate neutrality is complex, requiring commitment and drive. Moving from the symbolic to the substantive doesn’t happen automatically. Achieving carbon neutrality principally is an engineering and facilities maintenance challenge. Even harder for most academic programs will be the task of using whole-systems thinking to integrate sustainability throughout curricula that have often stood unmolested by changing decades, even turning centuries. Today’s most encouraging trends in higher education come not from measurable emissions reduction (as important as those are) but from the push to create interdisciplinary programs that integrate sustainability across core curricula.

A recent issue of The New Republic queried whether the traditional approach of business education might be responsible for the 2008 economic collapse, observing: “At Harvard, The continued relevance of informal debates are said to be breaking out in U.S. schools as accredited faculty lounges about whether professors should bodies of knowledge will be focus more on teaching students how to run determined not only by the businesses that are sustainable in the long run ability of their graduates to rather than just pawning off the latest hedging secure jobs in this new realm, strategies...business schools still need to have but also by whether humans a perhaps uncomfortable discussion about their can educate themselves broader purpose in the world—questions that sufficiently and rapidly enough involve pondering “the fundamental relationto step back from extinction. ship between the economy and society.” Not the sort of thing, alas, that’s easy to stick into a Campuses across the country are restructuring textbook.”22 The truth is that few of the issues their priorities and honing in on sustainability. that schools need to be teaching have even had More than 640 schools have made the ACUPCC texts written about them.

Presidio Graduate School uses the approach of “living cases,” in which students, for whom all classes are taught from the standpoint of how to sustainably manage a company, work directly with real companies, communities, and governments to help them implement the principles of sustainable management that the students are learning—and in many cases, creating. Such project-oriented learning has led students to create carbon-trading businesses, companies to implement cutting edge technology for smart meters, destruction of ozone-depleting substances, and innovative approaches to international development. Presidio professors, among the global leaders in the sustainability field, bring their real-life experience consulting for leading companies and governments into class, enabling Presidio graduates to get jobs as heads of sustainability for companies, cities, About the Author: Hunter Lovins, Esq., is the president and founder and universities.23 of Natural Capitalism, Inc. and co-founded Rocky Higher education faces the same challenges Mountain Institute. She served as a commissioner confronting all institutions on a planet in peril: in the State of the World Forum’s Commission on deliver the solutions that are vital to survival or Globalization, co-chaired by Mikhail Gorbachev, become irrelevant. Will academia rise to this and and Jane Goodall. Lovins has co-authored nine demonstrate that its resilient, forward-thinking books. She was featured in the award-winning foundations are intact and capable of shaping a film, Lovins On the Soft Path, and is currently sustainable future? Or will it remain reactionary, professor of business at Presidio School of Mansiloed in its disciplines and content to parade agement in the first accredited MBA program in sustainable management. In 2000, she was medieval traditions? named a “Hero for the Planet” by Time magazine. On that answer may turn the fate of millions of To view footnotes please visit www.climateneutralcampus.com species and of humanity.

White Paper

Redefining Higher Education For Now

The campus ecology movement needs to grow toward the goal that everyone graduates ecologically literate David W. Orr, Oberlin College

The first institutions of higher education in the U.S. were modeled on English universities, but stressed theological education. Thomas Jefferson’s plan for the University of Virginia broke from that pattern, instead aiming toward secular learning in service of his vision of a democratic society. The design of his “academical village” aimed to promote dialogue across what he considered to be core disciplines and symbolically placed the library at the apex of the lawn. The Morrill Act of 1862 created institutions dedicated to useful learning to establish a “permanent” agriculture in the U.S. It was quickly followed by the creation of research universities such as Johns Hopkins University, modeled on German universities and those dedicated specifically to research that was useful for industrial development and technological advancement, such as Rensselaer Polytechnic, MIT, Drexel Institute, and Cal Tech.1, 2 The liberal arts college, however, continued to define liberal learning as John Henry Newman3 (quoting Aristotle) once proposed, “where nothing accrues of consequence beyond the using.” Liberal learning, in his view, “gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal education makes not the

Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman.” “The intellect,” he thought, should be “disciplined for its own sake.” The model in each instance was adapted to the perceived needs of society and its various projects of settling the continent, saving souls, spreading the gospel, domination of nature, and economic growth. Clearly, education does not occur in a vacuum but begins with varying assumptions about how, why, and what people learn and the kind of aptitudes and skills necessary to support and perpetuate a particular kind of society, whether theocratic, democratic, industrial, or what is now termed “sustainable.” The specific goals of education and the art and science of instruction (i.e., pedagogy) further depend a great deal on whether those to be educated are presumed to being empty vessels to be filled with knowledge (what Paulo Friere called the “banking model” of education), or have pre-existing qualities that can be elicited and disciplined as others believe. In general, both pre-collegiate and collegiate education in the U.S. was modeled on the former belief that we are all born ignorant and so must be improved in order to increase public virtue, support democracy, provide the skills necessary to the industrial growth of the country, and more recently, to serve

the information economy and the development of high and ever-higher technology.

generation to deal with increasingly portentous issues? What do they need to know and how should they learn it? And what is the role of professional It is now generally conceded, however, that some- educators and institutions of higher learning in thing about the modern project of economic growth equipping the young to live full and productive lives and domination of nature went badly awry, and the relevant to the larger topography of their time? excesses built into the industrial system threatened the living systems of the planet, culminating in both There is No Shortage of Ideas biotic impoverishment and potentially catastrophic climate change. When John Locke developed his At one extreme, there is the view once expressed views on education in the seventeenth century, the by Kurt Vonnegut that the next time around, world population was perhaps 800 million. It is now whoever is in charge of creation should omit approaching seven billion. When Thomas Jefferson the frontal lobe of whatever brains might exist. drafted the design for his academy, the fastest Slightly less imaginative, there are some such as mode of transport was a strong horse or a frigate John Taylor Gatto4 who vigorously question the in a good wind. Technology is now like a tsunami goals and methods of public schooling, who, like sweeping across the human landscape and over- Ivan Illich, propose de-schooling society altogethturning everything in its path. Some thinkers, such er. And there are even a few heretics5, 6 who have as Ray Kurzweil believe that we are approaching a pondered the relation among the ascending curve â&#x20AC;&#x153;singularity,â&#x20AC;? meaning the merging of humans and representing the rise of the modern university, machines. Supposedly, these devices will evolve to the explosive growth of knowledge, the growsurpass human intelligence and attain conscious- ing sophistication of learned societies, and the ness, as well as the possible ability to self-replicate rapidly descending curve that one might draw and ultimately dominate the human race. In short depicting the human prospect.7 At any rate, an order, we are creating a different planet, arguably a important goal of education is to foster the different human nature, and a global culture evolv- capacity to hear an otherwise unfamiliar and ing faster than we can comprehend and adapt to the perhaps disagreeable thought, mull it over, changes. In other words, the challenges of conceiv- digest it, compare and contrast it, try it on for ing and achieving a durable civilization are sweeping. size, and think about its implications, all before But the dialogue about sustainability has been leaping to an opinionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which is to say foster almost exclusively focused on how to arrest envi- an informed but open and inquisitive mind. ronmental deterioration, as if the evolution of our machines and prosthetic devices is unrelated and The idea that education ought to be harnessed to advance the related causes of justice and unproblematic. sustainability has gathered considerable momenThe question is, at this time and under these tum. In the Tbilisi Declaration of 1977, organized circumstances, what is education for? What kind of by UNESCO and the United Nations Environeducation is appropriate and useful for the rising ment Programme (UNEP), representatives from

sixty-six countries called for the inclusion of environmental education in national educational programs. Among their recommendations were twelve guiding principles to make education interdisciplinary and a lifelong process that integrates the environmental science and issues across the entire curriculum. In hindsight, the principles from Tbilisi and similar documents over the next several decades were clearly stated, plausible, and well-intentioned, but did not lead to change commensurate with the scale of

The idea that education ought to be harnessed to advance the related causes of justice and sustainability has gathered considerable momentum.

While significant progress has been made in the past three decades, the purposes of environmental education, to say the least, remain deeply controversial. This reflects much of the ambiguity inherent in attempts to define sustainability and chart a plausible course to a more durable, decent, and just human future.8, 9 For educators, these issues devolve into unresolved questions. For example, is it necessary to “love” nature or have what pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson called a “sense of wonder” in order to live in harmony with it? The experience of many indigenous peoples suggests that ecological competence may be more important than anything like love or affection. But speaking for the other side of the question, scientist Stephen Jay Gould once argued that “we won’t save what we do not love.

Will such things as “peak oil” significantly threaten the systems by which we provide ourselves with food, energy, and materials and the problems they presumed to address. Virtu- thus require skills necessary to a greater degree ally everything about the modern educational of local self-reliance? If so, how should practical enterprise from teacher training programs to skills be included in the modern curriculum? the stranglehold of disciplines, to the procedures for attaining tenure in the modern academy, To what extent does an adequate response to conspired to undermine changes or render them environmental deterioration require a revolumarginal. The goals did not fit the organizational tion in human behavior and a paradigm shift and professional structures accreted over many at the cultural level? Stated differently, might a decades. The “pre-analytic” assumptions of sustainable society evolve naturally from further pre-collegiate schooling and higher education evolution of the modern project and specifically in general included the unstated belief that the the development of technologies that allow us environment was both too vast to be significantly to radically improve the efficiency with which we affected by human actions and was otherwise use energy, water, and resources; power civilizauseful mostly as a resource to be exploited in tion from sunlight; and mimic natural systems in service to human progress. both agriculture and industry in order to eliminate

pollution? Can we indeed be “rich, numerous, Searching for Answers and in control of the forces of nature,” as Herman Kahn once put it, and also be sustainable? If so, There are no definitive answers to such questions, the curriculum would be mostly more of the same, but we know that the human presence in nature with greater emphasis on science and technology. is both increasingly precarious and that we are coming uncomfortably close to the threshold To what extent is nature still “natural,” and not of irreversible changes in Earth systems. But if an artifact of human manipulation? If the answer we intend to hang around for a while, we have is “not much” or “not at all,” what value are we neither the luxury of asking small questions and to properly assign to it? Waiting in the wings but tinkering at the margin of the status quo nor that with one foot on the stage is the technology by of dreaming small dreams. Even so, there will be which we might simulate a virtual nature and no early consensus on the meaning of loaded and natural processes. Might our urge to affiliate complicated words like “sustainability” or agreewith life and lifelike process10 be met by biophilic ment about what schools, colleges, and universidesign, artificial reality, and simulation? Is there ties should do about it, however defined.12 something inherently wrong with “plastic trees,” which is to say, an increasingly contrived nature,11 If there is no particular consensus on the and if so, exactly what? What’s natural and substance of environmental education, there is what’s not, and what difference, if any, does that nevertheless a trend toward greater institutional difference make? engagement with the environmental issues and problem-solving that began with the earliest What is the purpose of environmental education environmental education programs in the 1960s of any sort when nature is being radically muti- and the creation of environmental studies lated by the twin forces of rapid climate change programs in the 1970s at Williams College, and the loss of species? It could be that teaching Middlebury, and Brown University. April Smith’s the young to love the declining nature around masters thesis at UCLA in 1988 In Our Backyard,13 them is rather like encouraging them to love a and the Meadowcreek Project’s early study of campus food systems at Hendrix, Carleton, and St. friend dying of cancer!!! Olaf colleges in 1988–89 were the first campus When so much of the human future depends on the resource studies.14 creativity and skills of commodity brokers, policy entrepreneurs, bureaucrats, and businesses to devise The Beginning of Change and implement the means to track and eliminate carbon emissions, is there any place left for role By the mid-1990s, these efforts had grown into models like Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson? Might larger studies of campus resource flows of food, natural capitalists, carbon traders, and entrepreneurs energy, materials, water, and waste in which the campus became a laboratory for both education making the big deals and big money suffice? along the lines once proposed by John Dewey

and also the foundation for better campus planning (Creighton, 1998). The National Wildlife Federationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s campus ecology program, ably led by Julian Keniry, brought increased awareness of environmental issues on campuses and also developed materials useful for improving efficiency and integrating campus management with curriculum. Walter Simpson created and directed the first successful university-wide energy efficiency program at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Others like Will Toor at the University of Colorado created effective campuswide recycling and low-impact transportation programs (Barlett and Chase, 2004). On the curricular side, in the late 1980s, Dean Anthony Cortese at Tufts University created the first university-wide program to encourage faculty to include environmental issues in courses across the curriculum. In October 1990, Jean Mayer, president of Tufts University, called a meeting of twenty-two university presidents and chancellors at Talloires, France which culminated in the Talloires Declaration. The document included ten goals, including encouraging leadership to increase awareness of environmental challenges, fostering environmental literacy throughout the campus, and changing operations to reduce environmental impacts. By 2008, 360 presidents in forty countries had signed the declaration. Talloires was followed by similar declarations: Halifax (1991), Swansea (1993), Copernicus University Charter (1993), and more recently significant activity surrounding The Earth Charter (Corcoran and Wals, 2004; Corcoran, 2007). By the late 1990s, campus environmental

activism was becoming mainstream in hundreds of institutions in the U.S. Presently, it is supported by significant presidential leadership at many colleges, notably Allegheny College, College of the Atlantic, Berea College, Furman University, Warren Wilson College, and dozens of others. The emergence of nationally significant organizations such as Second Nature, and the American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), amplified and coordinated otherwise disparate campus ecology efforts. In the late 1990s, two factors significantly focused what Keniry had called the campus ecology movement. The first was the rapid growth of the U.S. Green Building Council and the adoption of a standard rating system for new construction. The result was to focus effort to reduce the environmental impacts of the roughly $17 billion being spent on new construction on college and university campuses. Dramatic improvements in energy and materials technology, and the practice of integrated design necessary to build low-impact, high-performance buildings created large opportunities to firmly incorporate environmental goals into campus buildings while lowering costs for operations and maintenance. The first substantially green building on a U.S. college campus was Oberlin Collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Adam Joseph Lewis Center in Ohio, constructed in the late 1990s and still the only entirely solar-powered, zero-discharge building on a U.S. college campus (Orr, 2006). Other larger, more complex buildings, including science facilities, followed on dozens of other campuses so that LEED-rated buildings have become the accepted standard for new construction and renovation almost everywhere.

Second, the emerging awareness that humans are significantly changing climate for the worse has focused attention of the campus ecology movement “wonderfully,” as Samuel Johnson once said of the prospect of imminent death. Beginning with the first of four reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1991, the evidence that humans are causing rapid and potentially catastrophic climate change became more rigorous and more urgent. The scientific evidence strongly suggests that the speed, scale, and duration of climatic change are now beyond even the worst scenarios depicted by the IPCC in the fourth assessment report in 2007. An MIT study, for example, indicates that continuation of present emission trends would result in a probability of 90 percent-plus of a warming between 3.5˚–7.4˚C by the year 2100 (Chandler, 2009). If that prospect were to manifest, civilization would cease to exist in anything resembling its present form. The first call for carbon-neutral campuses appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2000 (Orr, 2000; Rappaport and Creighton, 2007). But the effort to organize both professional organizations and academic leadership began in earnest with the efforts of twelve college and university presidents, in collaboration with Second Nature, AASHE, and ecoAmerica to enlist college and university presidents and professional academic societies to publicly commit to move their institutions toward carbon neutrality. To date, more than 645 presidents have signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. The results will be both the reduction of a significant fraction of U.S. carbon emissions and a sterling example of leadership for other sectors. From the vantage point of, say, the mid-1980s,

few could have imagined the growth of environmentalism on college and university campuses. A quarter of a century later, efforts to improve energy efficiency, lower carbon emissions, reduce waste, encourage recycling, and build high-performance buildings have become mainstream virtually everywhere. That does not imply, however, the emergence of a consensus

The first call for carbon neutral campuses appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2000. on the nature of environmental problems or the appropriate curricular or institutional responses. Indeed, on these matters, there is evidence that curricular efforts have not kept pace with changes in operations and building standards. The National Wildlife Federation, for example, concluded in its Campus Environment Report: 2008 that between 2001 and 2008, “the amount of sustainability-related education did not increase and may even have declined.” That conclusion is supported by poll data that consistently show significant percentages of the public, including college graduates, to be ignorant and confused about the fundamentals of ecology and science in general. As much progress as has been made, there is a great deal more to be done to educate a public that understands systems and ecology, and how to think across the lines of professional and

disciplinary specializations. Nonetheless, there are promising efforts underway. Jim Elder, director of the Campaign for Environmental Literacy, was instrumental in securing passage of the Higher Education Sustainability Act, which allocates $50 million to support sustainability education in colleges and universities. Led by Elder and others, efforts are presently underway to divert up to 1 percent of revenues from any carbon auction program to increase public understanding of climate science and the implications of climatic change. Looking ahead, the campus ecology movement must continue to grow toward the goal that everyone graduates from colleges and universities ecologically literate, which is to say, knowing how the Earth works as a physical system and why that is vitally important to them personally and to the larger human prospect. There are many challenges to actually making this a reality, not the least of which is the very real possibility of increasing despair among young people in the face of what will likely be a time of increasingly dire news and seemingly unsolvable problems. The science suggests that what Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson calls “the bottleneck” ahead will test coming generations in extraordinary ways. Nonetheless, our obligation as educators, is to tell the truth about such things as best we can comprehend it, but then convert the anxiety that may accompany students’ increased awareness of the challenges to positive energy that can generate positive changes. However defined, environmental education must be an exercise in applied hope that equips young people with the skills, aptitudes, analytic wherewithal, creativity, and stamina to dream, act, and heroically lead in a perilous age. Imagine the education of the rising generation joined

with efforts to use the buying power, investments, research capabilities, and creative energies of institutions of higher education to design and build post-carbon economies. As former president of the University of Pennsylvania (1994–2004) Judith Rodin, for example, led an imaginative and sweeping transformation of West Philadelphia, using institutional investment to leverage several billions of outside funds. The results are remarkable and have reversed the urban decline in dozens of blocks surrounding the university and have become a brilliant example of urban renaissance (Rodin, 2007). That kind of effort joined to those of the campus ecology movement could be used to instruct students in the art and science of possibilities in a curriculum of applied hope, focused on the creation of prosperous post-carbon institutions and sustainable regional economies.

About the Author: David W. Orr, is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College. He is also a James Marsh Professor-at-Large at the University of Vermont. He is the author of five books and is best known for his pioneering work on environmental literacy in higher education and his recent work in ecological design. To view footnotes please visit www.climateneutralcampus.com

Case Study

Coeur D’Alene Eliminates Energy Waste School District Saves More Than $100,000 Per Year By Powering Off Computers Case Study Sponsored by Faronics

Located in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, Coeur D’Alene School District is responsible for educating slightly more than 100,000 students with 1,300 staff members. The district has about 4,000 workstations running Microsoft Windows XP—3,500 desktop computers and 500 laptops. A small number are running Mac OS X as well. Supporting these workstations are forty servers running Microsoft Windows Server.

The Problem

custodians would repeatedly comment that they found computers left on overnight when they were cleaning classrooms. “Not only was this a waste of energy, it was a waste of the district’s money,” Martin says. Coeur D’Alene District Director of Technology Jean Bengfort agreed that a computer energy management policy that relied on user action was not practical or effective. “We would go past a school in the evening and see the glow of monitors in a computer lab or classroom,” Bengfort says.

Bryan Martin, Coeur D’Alene District’s director of maintenance, was looking for ways the main- Martin had his work cut out for him. “I was tenance department could help the district save aware that past attempts to implement power money. Since the department was responsible for management on classroom computers had been paying the district’s energy bill, Martin saw how much the district was spending and knew energy was being wasted. He knew that by deploying new technologies and practices, the department could play a key role in reducing the district’s energy waste and costs. One area where Martin wanted to reduce energy use was the technology department. Classroom computers and monitors were not always being powered down by students and teachers at the end of the school day. The second-shift

The rising cost of powering 1,000 desktop computers

met with resistance,” he says. “I was told that computer power management was disruptive to the student users and to IT’s administration processes.” Martin had heard that new solutions were available that not only solved these problems, but also provided IT with a way to centrally manage computer power—something that Coeur D’Alene District’s network supervisor, Ethan Haberman, confirmed soon afterwards.

The Solution Looking for ways to save energy on computers, Haberman turned to the ENERGY STAR website, where in addition to energy-efficient hardware listings and best practices, he discovered a software-based desktop computer energy management solution that supports both the Windows and Mac platforms—Faronics Power Save. Power Save’s ability to keep computers running when users need them, accurately determine when computers were truly inactive so they could be powered down, and generate energyand dollar-savings reports were a hit with the district’s network supervisor. Pleased with Power Save’s potential to save energy and money, Haberman deployed Faronics’ workstation energy management software to all of the district’s computers during the spring and summer months. Power Save has been configured to turn off all monitors after five minutes of inactivity, and to place the computer into standby mode after ninety minutes of inactivity. All computers automatically shut down at 10 p.m., and remain off until users power them on in the morning.

To offset the license cost of Power Save, Haberman approached Avista Utilities and Kootenai Electric Cooperative about partnering on the project. Kootenai Electric has since rebated onethird of the software cost for the four schools it serves, and Avista plans to rebate the remaining two-thirds to cover the software for the remaining twelve schools.

The Results “Implementing Power Save across all our computers has definitely raised awareness among our users,” says Bengfort. “No one wants to waste district resources, and certainly we all want to do our part to be environmentally friendly.” When Bengfort shared some of the statistics with staff regarding the typical power consumed versus the power consumed by a computer that has the monitor or hard drive powered down, it was clear to everyone that it was the right thing to do. Coeur D’Alene School District expects to save as much as $300,000 over the course of three years. Having centralized control over workstation power states has also proven to be a huge time saver for Coeur D’Alene District, making IT staff more efficient in their roles.

Section 2:

PLAN

verb 1. decide on and arrange in advance; 2. make preparations for. You must have a plan in place to use as a step-by-step guideline to properly focus on actions for achieving your goals. Creating a comprehensive plan will ensure that all aspects of the project are focused achieving success.

White Paper

Building a Climate Action Plan Stakeholder involvement, an institution-wide commitment, and partnerships equal success. Tom Kelly, Ph.D., Sara Cleaves and Brett Pasinella, University of New Hampshire

Before sustainability became the buzzword it is today, the University of New Hampshire (UNH) had been advancing sustainability in some way, shape, or form over the last thirtyfive-plus years.1 Since 1997, this work has been lead by UNH’s University Office of Sustainability (UOS), the oldest-endowed sustainability program in higher education in the U.S.

and equity, sustainability is about seeing things holistically and acting accordingly. And while this model was developed by UNH’s chief sustainability officer and founding director of UNH’s endowed sustainability program, in order to be successful, the entire university must continually work together to transform itself into a sustainable learning community.3

The UOS brings together administrators, faculty, staff, students, and external partners to integrate sustainability across the university’s curriculum, operations, research, and engagement, referred to as the “CORE.” Four initiatives are designed around four key systems that underpin the ability of a community or society to define and pursue quality of life: biodiversity, climate, food, and culture. When we maintain integrity within and across these four systems and the CORE, we promote quality of life for generations. We call this model the “sustainable learning community.”2

Though energy conservation and efficiency work has been ongoing at UNH since the 1970’s,4 this work took on expanded meaning when UNH’s Climate Education Initiative (CEI) was developed in 1997 and 1998 under the direction of UNH’s then-newly endowed sustainability program. Built around one of the four foundational systems of sustainability, CEI integrates with the three other UOS initiatives in biodiversity, food, and culture.

Under CEI, UNH is committed to being a model climate protection campus that pursues a sustainable energy future through emissions reduction The sustainable learning community integrates policies, practices, research, education, and sustainability into the fabric of an institution of engagement. The overarching goal of CEI is to help higher learning in order to achieve the educa- administrators, faculty, staff, students, and comtional goal of cultivating a critical and creative munity partners increase their knowledge of and global sustainability outlook in our students and effectiveness in advancing greenhouse gas emisourselves. More than just “the environment” or sion reductions in their civic and professional lives, even the intersection of environment, economy, while integrating the ethics, science, technologies,

and policies of emissions reductions into the university’s identity, policies, and practices.

solutions to global warming. To date, the calculator has been downloaded by more than 2,300 institutions for their own use. It has also been refined and improved in partnership with Clean Air-Cool Planet since 2000, and is now being used in the next phase of UNH’s climate planning, the development of a climate action plan.

CEI unifies the campus community in working to: • Reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, as well as other air pollutants • Reduce potential climate change and improve (among other things) air quality • Research, develop, and demonstrate innovative The WildCAP Plan solutions to energy challenges In 2005, the CEI Working Group was transformed • Foster climate and air-quality prediction and into a campus-wide Energy Task Force (ETF) support public health issues related to chaired by a vice president. Under the guiding climate change framework of CEI and American College and • Educate students in all fields about the University Presidents’ Climate Commitment relationship among human activities, climate, (ACUPCC), the task force is developing a climate energy, health and appropriate civic and action plan for the Durham campus called “Wildprofessional actions CAP,” named after the university’s wildcat mascot. • Educate public health students to address the The plan will be completed by September 2009. risks associated with climate change and variability WildCAP’s goals are to: • Develop as a community model for the state • Maximize emissions reductions as soon as and region. possible to reduce climate impacts The first action of CEI was to form a cross-campus • Maximize cost savings through reduced energy consumption working group of faculty, staff, and students to plan and implement the vision, mission, goals, and initial • Develop a plan with broad-based support across the UNH community to ensure smooth projects of the initiative. One of the first projects implementation, willingness to invest in instituted was the development of a greenhouse energy-saving projects, and participation in gas emissions (GHG) inventory tool designed energy-saving behavioral changes to meet the unique needs of a higher education 5 institution. The CEI Working Group determined • Maintain UNH’s leadership position in that the university could not meet any of the stated campus climate action goals of the CEI without knowing the university’s • Develop opportunities to highlight UNH emissions and monitoring progress on a regular climate action to internal and external basis. The Campus Carbon Calculator, the planstakeholders and funders ning backbone behind the CEI, was developed in • Integrate operational and behavior savings partnership with Clean Air-Cool Planet, a nonprofit efforts with existing or new curricula and organization dedicated to finding and promoting research where possible.

Renewables: This group is focusing on the utilization of new technologies to minimize the use of carbon-intense energy sources. Analysis Phase Conservation: This group is focusing on policies During the analysis phase of WildCAP’s develop- and educational efforts to encourage conservation ment, which began in winter 2008, the ETF discussed behaviors by members of the university community. and agreed upon recommended long-term emis- Transportation: This group is focusing on equipsions reduction targets, an associated timeline for ment and policies designed to minimize emissions meeting these targets, and a database of emissions resulting from operation of the university fleet, reduction projects, listing initial capital costs, emis- commuter vehicles, and university-sponsored sion reduction potential, energy savings, and cost air travel. savings, as well as policies for the UNH president and cabinet to consider. Consistent with national The ETF member leading each working group and international calls for reductions in greenhouse worked with other staff on campus to gather data gas emissions,6 UNH has committed to reducing about energy use and costs of as many potential emissions 50 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by projects related to the focus of their group as 2050 en route to climate neutrality by 2100. feasible. Data were entered into the new planning module of the Campus Carbon Calculator Working groups led by ETF members were formed so that projects could be evaluated on the basis to focus on estimating emissions reductions and of the amount of carbon reduced, the cost of costs associated with projects in several key areas implementation, and costs avoided. While final that were chosen based on the results of previous project decisions will be driven in large measure versions of the GHG inventory. For example, now by the emissions avoided or reduced, the costs that UNH’s landfill gas pipeline, called EcoLine, of each project, and ease of implementation, the has come online to fuel the on-campus co- educational mission of the university will always generation heat and power plant, heating/cool- be taken into account. ing/electricity production will no longer be the largest contributor of emissions on campus. To build internal institutional commitment and stakeholder input into WildCAP, in the fall of 2008, As a result, working groups focused their at- the ETF hosted a summit for key administrators to tention on estimating the emissions reduction review the initial findings of the working groups potentials and costs associated with projects in in the context of the ETF’s recommended targets the following areas: and timeline. A list of projects necessary to meet the proposed targets, prioritized by cost, was disEfficiency: This group is focusing primarily on cussed. The particular goals of the summit were to capital improvements to structures and equipment work with key decision-makers to identify stratein campus buildings that would improve efficiency. gies for further study and to develop consensus on proposed emissions targets and timelines.

The ETF’s development process for WildCAP follows two broad phases:

After review by the UNH president and cabinet, the results of the analysis phase, including the final emissions reduction targets and timeline, were announced in the spring of 2009, and the UNH community strongly encouraged to participate in the collaboration phase of WildCAP. Collaboration Phase In the second phase of WildCAP’s development, which began in November 2008 and will continue through September 2009, ETF members will be presenting and discussing the targets, timelines, and potential emissions-reduction projects with the broader UNH community in order to familiarize them with what would be required to ensure successful implementation of WildCAP, as well as to gather the community’s ideas for additional reduction strategies. Along with hosting two open forums, feedback was solicited through groups such as the Faculty Senate, the Student Senate, three Staff Councils, and the Graduate Student Organization. Making use of feedback garnered from the outreach sessions, the ETF will assemble a complete WildCAP and offer it to UNH’s president and his cabinet for their review and approval in advance of the ACUPCC’s deadline of September 15, 2009. After the completion of the analysis and collaboration phases of WildCAP, ongoing efforts will be made through the ETF to facilitate implementation and budgeting for projects associated with the plan. GHG emissions will be tracked in relation to established targets and refinements to the plan and proposed projects made as needed to ensure successful achievement of targets. In addition, new curriculum, research, and engagement efforts will be developed

to ensure that just as UNH is lowering its emissions to carbon neutrality, it is also teaching, researching, and sharing climate and energy knowledge with the campus community and beyond.

Moving Forward The success of UNH’s CEI in engaging the campus community in climate and energy issues. It will be replicated in the other key initiatives of biodiversity, food, and culture with task forces or consortia similar to the Energy Task Force. An overall Sustainability Collaborative Council that will collate the monitoring, reporting, and recommendations of all the consortia into overall strategic sustainability planning and recommendations for the university. The goal is not only to ensure that

Today’s students are the inheritors of the world’s climate change crisis, and it is incumbent upon us to help them find solutions. in each initiative UNH is integrating sustainability across curriculum, operations, research, and engagement (CORE), but also that each initiative better integrates with the others (e.g., synergistic food and climate projects) and that the university is linking across this CORE as much as possible (e.g., faculty and student research tied to campus operations). The teaching, research, planning, inventorying, and collaboration ongoing under CEI will stand as a model for and will integrated

with similar efforts in biodiversity, food, and culture, ensuring a comprehensive and holistic approach to sustainability that weaves throughout the entire fabric of the university. Institutions of higher education—especially public institutions with land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant missions similar to UNH’s—can have no greater mission than helping their graduates, employees, and surrounding communities advance sustainability at home, at work, and abroad. UNH’s commitment to being a climate protection campus, and in particular, its climate action planning, are crucial to this broader commitment to sustainability and to the university’s educational mission.

education and sustainable development for more than fifteen years in the U.S. as well as in Colombia and Brazil. He is co-editor of the recent book The Sustainable Learning Community: One University’s Journey to the Future. Sara M. Cleaves is associate director, UOS at UNH. Along with planning, implementing, and managing communications and outreach efforts, She oversees budgeting and staff management, and participates in strategic planning and program evaluation for UOS. Cleave’s has a master’s degree in environmental economics and policy from the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University.

Brett Pasinella is the program coordinator of As UNH President Dr. Mark Huddleston, said Climate & Biodiversity Education Initiatives, UOS when he spoke at Clean Air-Cool Planet’s Confer- at UNH. He coordinates the organization and ence, Global Warming and Energy Solutions 20077, implementation of initiative curricula, research, “Our mission as a university goes beyond greening projects, and events related to the issues of biodithe campus. Today’s students are the inheritors versity, ecological and public health, conservation, of the world’s climate change crisis, and it is climate change, energy, and other issues. incumbent upon us to help them find solutions. It is imperative that what they learn here and To view sources please visit www.climateneutralcampus.com now empowers them to advance a clean, secure energy future. As an educational institution, UNH provides a forum in which students are free to shape their perspectives on everything, and that certainly includes learning how to live sustainably as individuals and community members.”

About the Authors: Tom Kelly, Ph.D. is the chief sustainability officer and director, University Office of Sustainability (UOS) at the Univerasity of New Hampshire. Dr. Kelly has been working in the field of higher

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Case Study

Unwired Environmental Opportunities Lewis University makes the grade with campus-wide high-speed coverage Case Study Sponsored by Motorola

The university’s need for faster, more advanced applications had outgrown its existing wireless network capabilities. Students soon found that having access only in academic areas of the campus wasn’t enough. “They wanted to actually collaborate with each other all over campus,” Dalby says. A few years ago, Lewis University, a rapidly growing Catholic Lasallian institution just outside Chicago, needed to update its high-speed Internet access to offer its more than 5,500 students, along with a faculty of 200 and staff of 350, the ability to get online anytime, anywhere on campus.

“The network just wasn’t dependable and would always disconnect,” says graduate assistant Monica Aguero. Helene Chmielewski, the university’s director of instructional technology and end-user services, says, “We had connectivity issues. We had slowness. It really turned more into a burden than a benefit for us. Students, faculty, and staff stopped using it because it wasn’t reliable.

In response to these needs, the school deployed a wireless network by putting hot spots throughout the Sustainable Network Solutions campus. These were primarily in academic areas of the 77-year-old university, which is situated on 380 Lewis University knew it needed a new wireless acres in Romeoville, Ill., and has five regional cam- solution and knew what it wanted. “Our ideal puses and an airport located adjacent to the campus. wireless network would have coverage across the entire university,” says Dalby. For security and “Today’s students demand high-speed Internet redundancy purposes, the university wanted the access wherever they are at any time,” says network to be separate from its wired network. John Dalby, the university’s chief information “It also had to be fast enough so that the students were getting good service throughout the univertechnology officer. sity,” notes Dalby

When Lewis University’s first network provider was acquired by Scientel Wireless, the company met with the university and found numerous problems. At first, the university thought it simply needed to deploy more radios to provide better coverage, but Scientel took a longerterm view.

much more than before,” says Ray Klump, associate professor of mathematics and computer science. “You’d be surprised how many students are instant messaging me for help, and now I can access and answer those questions from anywhere on campus.”

After an in-depth network reassessment, Scientel brought in Motorola as an equipment consultant. “Our recommendation was to change the technolReducing outdoor ogy direction and redesign the network using the infrastructure by 50%, and enterprise-class Motorola Wireless LAN product indoor by 30% without portfolio,” says Nelson Santos, executive vice compromising coverage president of Scientel Wireless. In doing so, Scienhelps reduce the energy tel reduced outdoor infrastructure by 50 percent consumption of the network. and indoor infrastructure by 30 percent. “Some may equate the reduction in infrastructure with a reduction in coverage. In fact, it isn’t an exact correlation. It is really about proper RF (Radio The new wireless network is also a major competitive advantage for student and faculty recruitment Frequency) planning,” says Santos. and retention. “Our enhanced wireless network Using Motorola’s WLAN planning tools ensure has added a new dimension to us being able to only the network equipment needed is deployed, attract students, retain students, and encourage resulting in less waste. Additionally, wireless net- them to continue on to a higher education with works are less expensive to deploy and maintain Lewis University,” says Chmielewski. over time than wired solutions. Dalby concludes, “Our improved wireless network A Major Competitive Advantage is now another excellent tool to enhance the educational experience for the entire university How are Lewis University’s students and faculty community. It makes it easier for our students responding to the new network? “We’ve actually qua- and our faculty to achieve outstanding successes.” drupled our network utilization over the last year,” says Dalby. “It’s being used by our students in the classrooms and anywhere they want to collaborate.” The faculty is also enthusiastic. “Now that we have reliable wireless access, I am using my PDA

On THE PATH TO A

GREEnER CAMPUS? The journey to carbon neutrality leads down many paths. One, often overlooked path leads to the campus laundry room. Not only does it provide the opportunity for significant water and energy savings and reduction of related CO2 emissions, it also serves as a powerful educational forum. In addition to installing the most energy-efficient laundry equipment, we also educate students about the environmental impact of choices made in the laundry room so they can make responsible decisions on campus today and in our communities tomorrow. How green is your laundry room and what are your students learning about laundryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s environmental impact?

Proud Energy StarÂŽ Partner, AASHE member and supporter of the ACUPCC mission.

www.campus-solutions.net | www.cleanandgreenvision.com

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Renewing the Past, Sustaining the Future For UMinn, Morris, getting carbon neutral by 2010 is about renewable, sustainable, local resources Jacqueline Johnson, Ph.D., University of Minnesota, Morris

The University of Minnesota, Morris, one of five campuses of the University of Minnesota system, was founded as an American Indian Boarding School in 1887, emerged as the West Central Agricultural Boarding High School in 1910, and was reinvented by local citizens as a public liberal arts college in 1960. The campus has been aligned with broader social and political movements since its beginning.

is the first turbine of its kind to be constructed at a public university, and it has been in operation since Earth Day, 2005.

In the fall of 2010, Morris expects to add a second wind turbine which will provide the remainder of campus electrical needs and more, eventually allowing Morris to put the excess electricity produced on-site back onto the grid. A third turbine1, shared with the Mille Lacs Band The legacy of the land and the importance of of Ojibwe Indians in Minnesota, will eventually natural resources have recently found their way provide a revenue source for both organizations. back into the collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s missionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to provide a Morris will use the revenue to fund scholarships residential undergraduate living and learning for students pursuing majors in environmental environment that emphasizes civic engagement, studies or environmental science. global citizenship, intercultural competence, and environmental stewardship. Thus, the goals of carbon neutrality and energy independence seem like natural ones for this decidedly rural, historically unique school. A return to core values and

The Carbon Neutral Components Wind: On a hill overlooking this Minnesota prairie campus, a 1.65 megawatt wind turbine currently powers 60 percent of campus buildings with a successful behind-the-meter application. It

original purposes serves the campus well in its quest for energy independence.

Biomass/Gasification: Tucked behind the campus physical education center, a small, unobtrusive building houses a biomass/gasification plant.

When fully operational, the plant will burn locally procured non-food-based bio-fuel feedstocks. By burning local products—principally, corn stover and mixed prairie grasses—the plant will replace Morris’ dependence on natural gas, provide a minimum of 80 percent of campus heating needs, and put about half a million dollars back into the local economy annually.

University of Minnesota Morris, 2009: Biomass Plant

Steam Turbine: In the fall of 2009, Morris will add a steam turbine to this gasification system. Operating on the green steam, which is a product of the gasification process, the steam turbine will produce electricity on those days when the wind isn’t blowing and will provide a redundant University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota, Morris, 2005: First wind source of electrical power that goes back onto Morris, 2001: Founding Member, Pride of turbine at a public university in the U.S. the grid on those windy days that are the hall- the Prairie mark of the prairie. This same green steam that provides heat for the campus in the winter will connect to an absorption chiller in the summer cal Foods Initiative. Cooperating with Sodexo, the campus food service provider, Morris is increasing to cool buildings.2 its use of locally grown, organic, and sustainably Campus Fleet: The majority of campus fleet produced food in its dining operations. In addition, vehicles are gas-electric hybrids. These hybrids the campus hosts a local foods dinner, as well as offset more than 21 tons of carbon dioxide per the Prairie Food Expo and Farmers Market for the year (about 2,200 gallons of gasoline), approxi- campus and broader community twice a year. mately the same amount of carbon dioxide that the average American produces annually (as Conservation and Recycling: In 2002, campus determined by the Union of Concerned Scientists). leaders began work on a water conservation The fleet also features a zero-emission vehicle study and upgrade. New fixtures with water(ZEV) which runs on electricity instead of gas and saving features such as restrictors in bathroom costs three cents per mile to drive—compared to sinks and showers, low-flow toilets, two-way nearly thirty-three cents per mile for a gasoline- flush valves, and motion-activated urinal flushers powered vehicle. The annual cost to power the have been installed on campus. The campus diliZEV is $161, saving $1635 per year. gently recycles aluminum, corrugated cardboard, office paper, and more. In 2007, Morris redirected Local Foods: The University of Minnesota, Morris 65 tons of recyclables from landfills at $211 per is a founding member of the Pride of the Prairie Lo- ton, saving the campus $13, 715.

University of Minnesota, Morris: Total Energy Use by Source, 2004–2012

University of Minnesota, Morris: Net Energy Balance, 2004–2012

National Historic District Renovation: The buildings which surround the Morris campus mall are listed on the National Historic Registry as part of a National Historic District. One of these buildings dates to the American Indian Boarding School era; the rest were designed in the early 1900s by Minnesota architect Clarence Johnston for the West Central Agricultural High School. Today, these buildings serve as the heart of campus academic, residential, and cocurricular activities.

The Outcome: The campus expects that the combination of factors recounted above will produce significant positive outcomes, as illustrated in the two graphs above. The first shows anticipated campus energy use by source over the course of 8 years, 2004–12. The second depicts the anticipated net energy balance at the university from 2004–12.

One of these historic buildings is currently being renovated as a gateway center for the campus, housing all the university’s outreach functions. The renovation reflects the campus mandate to build and renovate in accord with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. This mandate was fostered by Morris students, who successfully lobbied in 2007 to change campus planning guidelines to require that the campus use LEED Silver as the minimum level of energy efficiency. The building architect and campus leaders anticipate that the restoration will reach LEED Platinum standards, making it the first building in the country on the National Historic Registry to achieve such a distinction when it opens in January, 2010.

Renewing the past, sustaining the future Over the course of the past several years, the Morris campus has gained considerable regional, state and national attention. Visitors to campus inevitably ask the same questions: How has this coordinated, comprehensive campus approach been possible? What are the ingredients for success? There is no single or simple answer, but a variety of factors have likely influenced the positive outcomes apparent in the University’s effort to achieve carbon neutrality and energy independence. Location: Morris has taken advantage of its location—on the edge of the prairie in a high

wind area with abundant natural resources (biomass)—and capitalized on these elements to develop an integrated system of communitybased renewable energy. Some would describe the campus as “in the middle of nowhere,” yet the campus’ rural location emerges as an asset in the twenty-first century.

Meeting the climate challenge requires public policies at all levels to encourage and reward renewable energy, innovative technologies, creative funding mechanisms, smart consumer choices, and advances in research and education. Legacy: Morris has a history unlike that of any other college or university in the country. By renewing, rather than ignoring its commitment to that legacy—to the land, to peoples of the region, and to its agricultural roots—the university has reconnected to both indigenous people (in its partnership with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, for example) and to the local agricultural community (in its commitment to using local farmers as the suppliers for its biomass plant), while reaffirming its its liberal arts mission. This return to core values and original purposes serves the campus well in its quest for energy independence and it serves the region well as the nation’s green revolution promises to restore rural America.

Politics of application: We should credit rural values, American populism, and the combination of theory and practice. The cultures of the West Central Minnesota region and the University of Minnesota, Morris, combine in a most interesting way to create a campus ethos in which classroom learning is the beginning but never the end; in which pragmatism and application prevail. We should credit the essence of a liberal arts education as including not only “study in depth,” but also the ability to think critically and analytically, the desire to act, and the educational charge to both ask and answer the big questions of our time. These elements converge at the University of Minnesota, Morris, to produce an especially conducive climate for the work that is happening here. Practicality of collaboration: Although the campus is situated in a small Minnesota town (population 5,000), three hours from a major metropolitan area, the town hosts a broad and deep range of intellectual capital. In addition to the Morris campus, the community includes an agricultural outreach and research station of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (the West Central Research and Outreach Center), and a Federal Agricultural Research Station—the Morris “Soils Lab.” The Outreach Center hosts a variety of research projects that include renewable energy. And for many years, the Soils Lab has focused on carbon sequestration—a topic of vital importance as the impact of removing biomass from the soil to produce heating and cooling needs is explored. The stage is thereby set for a research partnership between scholars from these three units, who, encouraged perhaps by small town geography and the familiarity which the necessity of rela-

tive isolation breeds, have worked effectively to advance broader social and scientific goals. This collaboration has, in turn, produced a myriad of research opportunities for Morris undergraduate students—more than half of whom participate in faculty-mentored research or artistic production by the time they graduate. Holistic approach: The Morris approach to change is holistic, opportunistic, and entrepreneurial—led by students seeking change, fostered by faculty scholars dedicated to undergraduate education, and encouraged by staff who understand the importance of their role in furthering the institution’s mission. Driven by the need to cut costs and create new revenue streams in the first decade of this century, members of the campus and the local community have combined their energy and talent in distinctive ways, sought public and private partnerships, and availed themselves of as many financial tools in the emerging energy toolbox as possible.

laboratory and risk-taking—combine with equal elements of tenacity and audacity to create the conditions for the achievement of the ambitious goal laid out in the campus strategic plan: creation of a carbon neutral and energy independent environment by the year 2010.

A defining feature of successful institutions of higher education is their willingness to take risks.

About the Author: Jacqueline Johnson currently serves as the fifth chancellor of the University of Minnesota, Morris, a position she has held since August, 2006. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN, her Master’s and Ph.D. in Risk-taking: A defining feature of distinctive sociology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, residential, liberal arts institutions in the United IN, and began her career as a faculty member and States is their ability to create a holistic living administrator at Grand Valley State University in and learning environment in which the campus Allendale, MI. Johnson served as chief academic is the laboratory for learning. A defining feature officer at both Saint Martin’s University in Lacey, of successful institutions of higher education is WA. and at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, their willingness to take risks—to engage in proj- IA. She is currently a member of the steering comects that pave the way for others, to undertake mittee for the American College and University research based on hypotheses that are as likely Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) and, to prove true as they are untrue, and, in so doing, with colleagues and University of Minnesota, Morto invent a future fundamentally different from ris, students, leads her institution’s efforts to dramatically reduce its carbon footprint and achieve either the past or present. energy independence by 2010. At Morris, these two distinctive and defining features—the campus as a living and learning To view footnotes please visit www.climateneutralcampus.com

Case Study

Lakeland CC on Fast Track to Energy Efficiency Model project assures lower carbon footprint, reduced energy use and greener learning opportunities Case Study Sponsored by Siemens Building Technologies, Inc.

Lakeland Community College is moving quickly to achieve a greener, more sustainable future with the help of a comprehensive energy and resource efficiency improvement project delivered by Siemens Building Technologies, Inc. The campuswide effort, among the first of its kind in the region, is on a fast trackâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;one that when finished will significantly lower its overall carbon footprint and realize substantial energy savings.

percent reduction in energy consumption, for both on and off campus facilities, by 2014. A secondary goal is to reduce CO2 by 20 percent in the same time frame.

Creating a Heating and Cooling Network

One significant solution to help Lakeland meet its energy efficiency goals was the creation of a single heating and cooling network for the entire campus. The heating and cooling plants scattered throughout the campus were centralized eliminating excess heating and cooling. A secondary goal is to reduce Another recommendation was the expansion of CO2 by 20 percent in the same a building automation system to allow for overall time frame. management of campus facilities, scheduling and weather management and to permit efficient inLakeland Community College is a public institu- tegration of new energy sources as they develop. tion of higher education founded in 1967 as the Additionally, a broad variety of heating, ventilafirst college in Ohio established by a vote of the tion and air conditioning (HVAC) system upgrades, people. The main campus facilities encompass lighting retrofits, and building and facility 650,000 square feet of space and accommodate improvements put Lakeland on a very aggressive between 9,000 and 12,000 visitors daily. In 2007 schedule. Other elements of the project will be the state of Ohio enacted House Bill 251, which less apparent, but will nevertheless contribute a mandates state institutions and agencies achieve great deal to achieving the energy and resourceenergy and resource efficiency goals. For Lakeland efficiency goals mandated by House Bill 251 and Community College, this meant achieving a 20 guaranteed by the Energy Savings Performance

Contract (ESPC) Siemens has with the school. These measures will improve Lakeland’s energy efficiency by 20 percent to 30 percent and reduce annual energy costs by more than $500,000. “Lakeland’s cost of energy is $1.7 million, which represents 3 percent of our budget. Our comprehensive energy plan will significantly reduce our energy costs and also reduce our carbon dioxide footprint by 38 percent. That’s about 5,300 metric tons, or more than a third of its current emissions measured at 14,000 tons annually,” says Michael Mayher, vice president for administrative services and treasurer.

Our comprehensive energy plan will significantly reduce our energy costs and also reduce our carbon dioxide footprint by 38 percent. That’s about 5,300 metric tons...

It’s About the Learning Along with the financial and environmental benefits of the ESPC, Siemens, through its Building Education program, is investigating the possibility of a unique education initiative. The initiative would assist Lakeland Community College in providing students with opportunities that could lead to careers in energy-related fields, including environmental and energy engineering, as well as twenty-first century green technician jobs. Students would be learning about green initiatives in a truly energy-efficient and green environment on the updated campus. “Lakeland is committed to reducing our own impact on the environment. We also hope to be a role model for our students and employees, as well as for our county, state, and nation,” says Lakeland President Dr. Morris W. Beverage, Jr.

White Paper

Thoughtfully Positioned to Promote Climate Neutrality Houston Community College takes a three-pronged approach to achieve its sustainability goals. Dr. Mary S. Spangler and Remmele J. Young, J.D., Houston Community College

As the depletion of our natural resources becomes more evident and alarming, thought leaders in the higher education field are progressively committing themselves to making the environment more sustainable. Houston Community College (HCC) is no exception. As a signatory of the American College and University Presidentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), the college is diligently pursing climate neutrality. Like other ACUPCC signatories, the college seeks to model ways to eliminate global warming emissions, and provide the knowledge and the education its graduates need to contribute to climate neutrality.1

Energy Efficient Operations HCC is proactively becoming more energy efficient operationally and developing sustainable green projects that further our commitment to climate neutrality. To advance these operational changes, HCC recently engaged Chevron Energy Solutions (CES), under a request for qualifications response/award process, to conduct an energy audit of thirty-eight HCC buildings covering an area of 2.35 million square feet.

The findings of the HCC/CES audit effectively identified potential cost savings of $5 million over a five-year period. Factors contributing to To help achieve the collective ACUPCC goal, the identified savings opportunities included HCC recently embarked upon an initial three- temperature control systems, better utilization pronged approach that includes: (1) operationally of lights, monitoring management projects, and becoming more energy efficient and developing mechanical projects. The findings also revealed sustainable green projects; (2) programmati- that HCC could save an additional $200,000 cally exposing its students to green jobs; and (3) annually by implementing a plan to better use leveraging existing and new partnerships with classroom space. external entities that have a committed interest in reducing our impact on the environment.2 Additionally, the energy audit identified an opporAchieving climate neutrality is critically important tunity to enhance energy savings by immediately to HCC as we actively pursue a more sustainable adding co-generation3 of electricity for emergency future for our students, our immediate community, support at HCCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s principal headquarters in Houston, Texas. These are thoughtful examples of changes and the community at-large.

in practice producing right results, particularly as it concerns promoting energy efficiency that moves us closer to a climate neutral environment.

cause of sustaining our environment by being good stewards of our resources.

The HCC recycling implementation plan will From a costs-benefits perspective, HCC found demonstrate value in fiscal and environmental that its return on investment outweighed the terms. Whether it is single-stream recycling (the costs of failing to act, coupled with the monetary mixing of recyclable paper, plastic, and glass in savings realized over time. Compared with its one bin) or collecting specific types of waste in existing operating costs in the aforementioned designated bins, HCC will deliver this program areas, HCC projects a potential annual return as part of its commitment to being environmenon investment of $900,000 in energy savings— tally friendly. sufficient to cover the cost of purchasing and retrofitting the required equipment. Thus, the Exposure to Green Jobs initial assessment produces encouraging results while simultaneously helping to reduce HCC’s The U.S. Department of Labor’s attention has carbon emissions and promote a more sustain- shifted to green jobs4 and careers that involve new and better ways of conducting work activiable environment. ties that benefit the environment. In support of this re-definition, HCC is programmatically Recycling Opportunity exposing its students to course work focusing Another operational change expected to go into on green jobs. Moreover, this action positions effect at HCC in the fall of 2009 is recycling. HCC students to become gainfully employed in Implementing a recycling program district-wide an evolving job market that recognizes the value has been a challenge for HCC, which has thirty- of promoting sustainable practices and climate eight separate physical facilities in three counties neutrality. (i.e., Harris, Fort Bend and Waller) spanning 623 square miles. Yet HCC faculty and staff have Critically important to establishing a viable green expressed a willingness to become better stew- jobs curriculum is the need to confer first with ards of our resources and more efficient in the employers who have specific needs and interest college’s operations. in the green-related work area. These preliminary discussion with employers have provided an adThe recycling implementation at HCC likewise raises equate context from which HCC has effectively awareness and promotes going green by giving devised green jobs programs that meet existing the college’s 3,890 employees and just more than and future job demands. 60,000 students tangible evidence of HCC’s commitment to promote sustainable practices. Furthermore, As a result of conferring with local Houston this opportunity positions HCC to participate in employers, HCC successfully helped train/retrain recycling competitions designed to promote the its students for green jobs opportunities. Pro-

grams devised include Construction Technology, Heating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration, Industrial Electricity, Biotechnology, Chemical Engineering Technology, Instrumentation and Process Technology. An additional or related program under development is Power Technology, including wind, solar, and other alternative sources of energy. These areas are reliable green pathways to climate neutrality and thus a sustainable future.

Leveraging Relationships

testament to its commitment. These steps are essential as we strive to fulfill our mission.

About the Author: Mary S. Spangler, Ed.D. is the chancellor of the Houston Community College System. Before joining HCC in 2007, she was chancellor of Oakland Community College, the largest community college in Michigan. She also served as president of Los Angeles City College, which is the flagship institution of the Los Angeles Community College District, and the largest in the nation.

Recognizing the intrinsic value that relationships provide, HCC is leveraging its existing and new associations with external entities that have a Remmele J. Young., J.D., is HCC’s executive common interest in promoting climate neutrality. director of government relations & sustainability. HCC believes that through these associations, the path to a sustainable future is attainable, paved To view footnotes please visit www.climateneutralcampus.com with expert knowledge, and resources united in a collaborative pursuit of a common interest. To develop the power of these collaborative relationships, HCC will host a 2009 Chancellor’s Symposium on Energy that brings HCC students and local high school students together with faculty, staff, and external entities such as the University of Houston, Rice University, Chevron Energy Solutions, Waste Management as well as federal and state policy makers. HCC’s mission is to become the nation’s most relevant community college by being the institution providing unlimited opportunity to those we serve. HCC’s initial steps of becoming more energy efficient, developing more green projects, exposing students to green jobs and leveraging partnerships with external entities are a positive

Motorola Wireless Enterprise

SMARTER DECISIONS, SAFER CAMPUSES The only way to make better decisions is to be equipped with better information. Motorola’s interoperable voice and wireless broadband solutions deliver real-time information to campus officers so they can better assess situations and achieve better outcomes. Using video surveillance, officers have a more complete view of their campus – helping to deter vandalism and other illegal activities. And because our solutions can connect campus security with local police, the reach of officers is extended so responses can be better coordinated and campuses can be safer than ever before. It’s just another way Motorola enables law enforcement to focus on their mission, not their technology. HELLOMOTO™

Named “Greenest Wi-fi Vendor” by ABI Research, Motorola promotes a green environment by designing wireless solutions that support greater energy efficiency. Find out more. Visit motorola.com/education or call 1-800-367-2346.

MOTOROLA and the Stylized M Logo are registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners. © Motorola, Inc. 2009. All rights reserved.

Sponsored Solutions Profile

A Green Thread Runs Through Campuses

As a dining and facility management partner with more than 600 colleges and universities throughout North America, ARAMARK Higher Education has a deep respect for and commitment to protecting and improving the environment. We offer expertise and practical experience that help colleges and universities reduce their environmental impact. ARAMARK develops and implements long-term environmental stewardship programs and policies within the areas of sustainable food, responsible procurement, green buildings, energy and water conservation, transportation, and waste stream management. ARAMARK calls these programs and policies Green Thread™ as they weave throughout business operations everyday. Aramark focuses on significant contributions to partner campuses in efforts to reduce the environmental footprint, including: • Achieving significant energy consumption reduction and cost savings through customized energy solutions

• Generating average energy consumption reductions of 10 percent to 20 percent. To date, these reductions have resulted in more than $450 million in energy savings for ARAMARK clients • Establishing curtailment programs that decrease energy and financial waste as much as 27 percent • Implementing procurement strategies that balance least cost, least impact—with options to integrate alternative fuels and carbon offsets Developing a Campus Greenhouse Gas Inventories Climate Action Plan • Providing baseline data that is reliable and comprehensive • Developing practical and meaningful carbon neutrality action plans • Supporting or directing the implementation and validation process Assisting in External Recognition for Green Building Initiative • Facilitating the LEED certification process, for new construction and existing buildings • Integrating innovative waste diversion collection mechanisms into daily operations • Aligning standard operating procedures with new “green” innovations, such as touchless

Maximizing the Facility Life Span • Developing real and focused maintenance practices that maximize asset lifespan • Working with our vendor partners to better understand the economic, social, and environmental impact of each product we purchase

restroom cleaning, blue cleaning, and chemical-free floor cleaning Commissioning Renewable Energy Installations • Ensuring new technology installations perform as specified during design phase • Validating emission reduction commitments from the manufacturer and contractor • Developing ongoing maintenance operating protocols for renewable installations Integrating Base Conservation Initiatives • Implementing an energy and water conservation program at every site • Working with the campus green teams to collaboratively participate in friendly conservation competitions • Developing new awareness programs to support improved communication and daily decision-making habits Focusing on our Waste Stream • Leading the conversion to products and supplies with less packaging and waste • Reducing use of disposables • Aligning with EPA, NRC, and other leading nonprofits focused on waste minimization

Awards & Recognitions • Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wastewise Endorser of the Year (2007) • Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year (2008 and 2009) • NACUBO Innovation Award for progressive energy procurement efforts • Founding Sponsor of Clean Air—Cool Planet’s CHEFS program (Charting Emissions from Food Services) • AASHE Board of Directors Member & Student Summit Sponsor • Continued sponsor of ACUPCC events, including the Presidents Summit ARAMARK Higher Education has the expertise and ability to integrate self-funding, sustainable elements into campus programs, enabling sustainability platforms to THRIVE!

About the Author: ARAMARK Higher Education is dedicated to excellence in dining, facility, conference center, and stadium and arena services. ARAMARK enhances the living and learning experience and environment for more than 600 colleges and universities throughout North America. Learn more at www.involved.evolving.com and at www.aramarkhighered.com, or contact ARAMARK directly at 866-428-1094.

White Paper

Going Green in Hard Economic Times A Plan for a Green Recovery Andrew Winston, Co-Author of “Green to Gold”

For the past few years, the business world has been swept up in a green wave—a rising tide of interest and concern about environmental issues. Pressures from both natural forces and key stakeholders have made going green somewhat unavoidable. But many business people hold on to an outdated view of green, and the misconception that environmental practices always cost a lot of money. But green doesn’t raise costs; it lowers them—quite often in the short run, and definitely in the long run.

But unlike with most other strategies, the external forces driving green thinking make this topic unique and unavoidable. Although a person’s instinct may be to retreat from green initiatives in hard times, that would be shortsighted and a huge mistake. In tight times, most companies need to focus on their bottom lines, cut costs, and conserve cash. And they need to do it fast. Reducing energy use and waste, two pillars of green, can save a great deal of money.

But as they say, nothing in life is free. Yes, some projects will save money immediately at virtually no expense, but greater rewards often require some commitment. So if you want to reduce energy costs, asking people to turn off lights won’t cost anything. But changing lightbulbs and installing motion detectors to get larger savings will clearly take some capital. The return on investment (ROI) will be high and the payoff fast, but it still requires some up-front expense. So the critical distinction here is between costs and investments. Let me be blunt: If your business is unable to allocate any human or financial capital for investment—in R&D, customer relationships, people, process changes, or anything whatsoever—then no strategy, including a green one, will matter right now. Survival will be the only priority, and that means conserving cash above all. But most companies, even in these hard times, are still making decisions about where to put their attention, people, and money every day. For those companies that are navigating these tricky waters but also want to position themselves for dominance in the future, green thinking can make all the difference. The logic for going green is no different from the logic for pursuing other business strategies. Companies look to drive

profitability, innovation, customer loyalty, employee engagement, and so on. But unlike with most other strategies, the external forces driving green thinking make this topic unique and unavoidable. Most of the forces driving companies to go green have not gone away. Environmental crises, such as climate change and water shortages, continue to evolve. Megaforces such as technology-driven transparency and the rise of the middle class in India and China, which will force the price of oil and other resources up over time, continue to advance. Closer to home, key stakeholders still demand more of companies than ever, especially corporate customers greening their supply chains. Even your employees and consumers, both of whom are under extreme financial pressure, still want some measure of environmental performance and social responsibility in the companies they work for and buy from. All of these pressures make up an overpowering green wave that is permanently changing business. Like it or not, companies and countries must deal with current and longer-term environmental issues while simultaneously working on current economic challenges. Luckily for business, the solutions to both economic and environmental problems heavily overlap. The same strategies and tactics that address long-term environmental challenges will help businesses survive today’s economic conditions.

1 2

Get lean by revving up your energy and resource efficiency to survive the downturn. Get smart by using environmental data about products and value chains to save money, innovate, and generate competitive advantage.

Get creative and rejuvenate your innovation efforts by asking heretical questions such as, “Can we run our business with no fossil fuels?”

Get (your people) engaged and excited by asking employees to solve their own, the company’s, and even the world’s environmental challenges.

Although your instinct may be to retreat from green initiatives in hard times, that would be shortsighted and a huge mistake.

Get Focused

The four big areas of focus will benefit your My new book, Green Recovery, offers a plan for company today and tomorrow. Betting on companies that want to stay healthy today and efficiency and getting lean will not only save also get ready for the inevitable upturn to come. you money quickly, but also make you more In tight times, figuring out what to prioritize is competitive in a future with higher resource even more important. I suggest focusing on four prices and more questions from customers about areas in order to: your environmental footprint. Gathering data on

the company’s environmental footprint up and down the value chain will help you identify highpriority areas for cost-cutting today and make you smarter about where to focus longer-term innovation efforts. Getting creative means optimizing today’s processes and operations and developing tomorrow’s new products and services. And of course, engagement and alignment of all your people makes all of these benefits possible. In short, green isn’t an additional, tangential pursuit that distracts from the real work of the business; it is a core part of operating today.

Getting creative means optimizing today’s processes and operations and developing tomorrow’s new products and services. In tight times, more than ever, a solid plan for a green recovery will make your company more competitive, no matter what its size.

About the Author: Andrew S. Winston advises some of the world’s leading companies on how to profit from environmental thinking. He is the co-author of the bestseller Green to Gold and author of the upcoming Green Recovery, a guide to surviving and thriving in an economic downturn. Winston is also a highly respected and dynamic speaker, exploring the business benefits of going green

with audiences around the world. Andrew’s earlier career included corporate strategy at Boston Consulting Group and management positions in marketing and business development at Time Warner and MTV. Excerpted by permission of Harvard Business Press from Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top. Copyright © 2009 Andrew Winston; All Rights Reserved. For more, please visit www.AndrewWinston.com.

White Paper

Climate Neutrality Through Energy Efficiency Joining the ACUPCC is a serious commitment that requires a detailed plan Shon Anderson, TAC by Schneider Electric

Since its creation in 2006, the American College There is no doubt that the member schools are and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment committed to the initiatives, as joining the (ACUPCC) has amassed signatories that represent ACUPCC requires the signatures of presidents more than 645 schools—comprising close to onethird of all students in higher education in the U.S. What makes this level of participation striking is that the ACUPCC is not just a document, it is a commitment to responsible energy use that involves significant dollars. Indeed, participation in the ACUPCC involves a paradigm shift in the way institutions perceive and use energy, and requires concrete action and serious investments in energy efficiency. The ACUPCC has as its goals the development of climate neutrality1 for member campuses, as well as the training of students to achieve the same for society at large. The ACUPCC sets specific benchmarks that include: • An annual greenhouse gas audit • Two or more short term ‘tangible actions’ that demonstrate commitment to results • Specific targets and timelines to achieve climate neutrality • Sharing plans and progress reports to facilitate and accelerate progress for their fellow institutions and society

With so many schools facing budget challenges, performance contracting offers a way to implement green initiatives with a minimum impact on the budget. and chancellors. The benefits to the institution for participating are significant, and include educating future environmentally conscious citizens and experts, making a positive difference in the community, and strengthening enrollment through improved public image. However, the question facing higher education leaders today is, How can we undertake major facility upgrades and initiatives at a time when the economy is struggling and our budgets are tightening?

To solve this dilemma, many institutions are using an approach called performance contracting.

Figure A

Energy Savings Performance contracting is a guaranteed approach to energy savings provided by qualified energy services companies. Performance contracting allows a college or university to pay for some or all of its energy upgrades out of its existing budget, using the energy savings that are generated by the upgrades to pay for the initiatives. The key point of such a program is that the savings from energy improvements are guaranteed by the energy services company. If the projected savings are not realized, the energy services company writes a check to the school for the difference.

This is a simple illustration of how performance contracting can self-fund green energy initiatives. A contract with an energy services company guarantees a specific reduction in an institutionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s energy bill; if that savings is not realized, the energy services company writes a check to the school for the difference. The guaranteed energy savings, which can be budgeted with certainty, are then used to fund the comprehensive projects.

Performance contracting is not new, having been offered to city governments and public institutions for several years. With the growing public Performance contracting is designed to be a win- awareness of global warming, and initiatives win approach. The energy services company takes such as ACUPCC, performance contracting is beon the responsibility because it knows that savings coming increasingly popular in higher education. can be realized, and it has the expertise to guide and implement energy neutral measures and still Performance Contracting and achieve a profit. The school benefits from having the ACUPCC Objectives a guaranteed path to funding its ACUPCC commitments, not to mention improving facility systems A key requirement of the ACUPCC is to have a comprehensive plan for achieving climate neufor little or no additional bottom line costs. trality. This plan needs to include conducting a Performance contracting provides other ad- complete audit of current greenhouse emissions, vantages as well. Having a guarantee of how as well as ongoing quarterly reports to track facilities will perform now and over the long term actual energy performance. makes for better planning and budgeting, with fewer surprises. Also, since the energy services The energy services company that is providing the company takes responsibility for design-through- performance contract will help the institution develinstallation and beyond, schools gain a single op an effective plan based on these data. Ideally, the point of accountability, a partner with energy plan will first address upgrades and changes that expertise who has a vested interest in the outcome. have the most immediate impact on energy savings,

Figure B Utility Savings

Energy Savings (MMBtu)

N/A

Interior Lighting Upgrades

$41,906

1,446

Lighting Control Upgrades

$22,609

1,161

Plumbing Fixture Upgrades

$5,797

N/A

Energy Conservation Measures Installation of Building Sub-meters

Connection of Administration Building AHU-1-2 to CHW System

$2,297

Conversion of AHU-1-1 to VAV and Connect to CHW System

$19,942

102

$191,509

15,591

Installation of Window Film

$6,881

240

PC Power Management

$15,840

402

$306,781

19,005

Replacement of Existing Novar HVAC controls w/ TAC Vista System Integratation of Existing Honeywell & Trane HVAC controls w/ TAC Vista System

This is a community college district’s sample energy plan with projected savings. To reach this point, the energy services company will have conducted a full audit of an institution’s current state. Based on the predicted savings, the energy services company is able to guarantee specific savings.

providing rapid savings and ROI for the institution. In addition, the energy services company will be able to develop a comprehensive solution that takes into account all the available conservation strategies and how they interact to conserve energy. Instead of taking care of one-off lowhanging-fruit measures at separate times, a performance contract can integrate the synergy of energy conservation measures for the highest value, allowing institutions to capitalize on maximum savings opportunities. Performance contracting makes one company accountable for looking holistically at an institution’s energy use and balancing these complex factors across various buildings and campuses.

Tracking Energy Performance

tution needs the quarterly reports to verify that its performance contract is being fulfilled by the energy services company—and if not, how much money the energy services company owes the institution. Thus, ongoing reporting is one of the most critical elements of the entire process. It’s worth noting that these reports can be a valuable public relations asset to a college or university. Institutions can make an extra effort to share these reports with students, staff, and the community. Reports can include environmental impact data that proves the value of the programs, by comparing energy savings to comparable measures such as reducing the numbers of cars on the road or acres of trees destroyed.

How to Get Started

As noted, the ACUPCC requires quarterly report- The first step for any institution is to establish ing to verify an institution’s progress toward a policy on environmental responsibility, if one climate neutrality. Just as importantly, the insti- is not in place already. Become a signatory of

the American College and University Presidentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Climate Commitment. Gather input and support from students and faculty, present the policy to the board, and even involve the community.

this type of project, you should make sure that the energy services company adheres to a third-party measurement and verification strategy, such as the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol, the accepted industry stanOnce you have a commitment to moving toward dard of measurement. This will help ensure the climate neutrality, contact leading energy services validity of measurements and savings achieved; it companies in your area and ask them to present is critical for a performance contract to be based their ideas and proposals for implementing a per- upon real and verifiable savings. formance contract. This selection process should be like any other your school would undertake. Some energy services companies may provide a However, keep in mind that performance con- preliminary energy audit at the proposal stage. tracting is by definition a long-term project that This can give you an idea of what and where the will be ongoing for several years. You will want to energy reduction opportunities are. choose a partner who is well-established and has a proven track record in the field. Once a company is selected, it will perform an Also, since ongoing reporting is so important in investment grade audit across all the target

This is an energy savings report over time for a college, showing projected and actual savings. Note that the report includes environmental impact data comparing energy reduction with automobiles and acres of trees.

buildings and campuses. This is the detailed, comprehensive audit that will establish exact goals and savings projections, providing the benchmark for your performance contracting. The energy services company will also provide a specific roadmap of action based on the audit, detailing which projects should be implemented first in order to achieve the fastest savings and return on investment.

About the Author: Shon Anderson drives sales strategies for the Energy Solutions (ES) division of TAC by Schneider Electric. Through performance contracting, ES specializes in turnkey energy management projects. Schneider Electric is a $23 billion global energy management enterprise dedicated to making clientsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; energy safe, reliable, efficient, productive, and green from plant to plug.

Responsible Energy Policies As more institutions join the ACUPCC and commit to climate initiatives, it is becoming essential for colleges and universities to develop and implement responsible energy policies. With so many schools facing budget challenges, performance contracting offers a way to implement green initiatives with a minimum impact on the budget. Through performance contracting, with guaranteed energy savings and engineering expertise from an energy services company, institutions can use projected energy savings to help fund new projects that might otherwise be unaffordable. Thus, performance contracting not only helps colleges and universities to meet the goals of the ACUPCC, it can also play an important role in improving public image, enhancing enrollment and endowment funds, and training a new generation of experts to move our sustainability energy technology forward.

Case Study

Making Cents of Solar An innovative three-way partnership paves way for green power at cash-strapped Colorado State University-Pueblo Case Study Sponsored by BP Solar

When Colorado State University-Pueblo (CSU) first wanted a solar power system, things looked grim. Solar technology is still pricey and CSU, being the smallest university in the state of Colorado, is strapped for cash. But today, it’s also host to a 1.2-megawatt solar power system, the largest in Colorado and one of the largest at any educational institution in the U.S. “We are not a very wealthy institution,” says Joseph Garcia, president of CSU-Pueblo. “Solar is something we believe very strongly in, but we simply didn’t have the money to build something like that on our own. So we needed to have somebody else pay to build the system and we needed to pay no more for electrical energy when it was done than we were paying before.” Colorado state law mandates its utility companies to move toward generating 5 per cent of their power through renewable resources, a daunting task without outside help. Solar power veteran BP Solar is always looking to build more arrays, but it needs hosts to provide land and consumers to buy the resulting electricity. Last year, utility company Black Hills Energy put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) on a project to help meet those state mandates. After BP Solar won the contract, a local nonprofit firm proposed

a partnership with a university. Numbers were crunched, and CSU agreed to become a host site for the system, which is set to provide more than ten percent of CSU-Pueblo’s future power needs. The deal worked like this: CSU donated some four acres of land that was otherwise unusable. Black Hills provided $200,000 up front from its solar rebate program. BP Solar paid for the rest, installing a massive solar array on the land. The project went online last January and the company operates and maintains the system, selling the zero-carbon electricity to the university. Black Hills then buys from BP Solar the renewable energy credits (RECs) created by the project—credits it can claim toward its sustainability goals. BP Solar is as proud of the engineering feat that went into building the project on a scrap piece of land as it is about the partnership that allowed it to work. “This particular project faced more than your average number of obstacles,” says Richard Chan-

dler, commercial development manager with BP Solar. “This plot of land truly had no other purpose.” When BP came in to build the system, it found out why. The company had to make it work on a 13-degree, west-to-east sloped hillside. It was covered with swales and other topographical challenges and sitting on expansive clay soils. As the name suggests, these soils expand when water is added and contract as they dry. This volume change can cause severe damage to buildings, so smart civil engineering was paramount. Crews from BP Solar smoothed out the landscape and used flexible joints to allow the system to move as the Earth moved. As far as money goes, no one wants to talk numbers. There’s so much competition and innovation in the solar business today, BP Solar is playing its cards close to its chest. “Whatever that number is that we need to make the economics work for ourselves is that number,” says Chandler. “What we’ve simply done in this case is taken that number and split it into two pieces, saying it’s going to be X that we need from the university and 1-X from Black Hills.” So the school pays for the actual kilowatt-hours produced by the system. Black Hills pays for the corresponding RECs every month, gaining one credit for every million kilowatt-hours produced. Come July 2009, it had already earned nearly 1,000 RECs, exceeding initial projections.

CSU signed a twenty-year, fixed-rate deal with BP Solar. It expects cost savings in the long run, as the rates it negotiated are lower than those forecast for electricity produced from fossil fuels. For CSU-Pueblo, this is the beginning of an exciting new chapter. Garcia says the school’s foray into solar energy actually started in 2008, when two solar panels were mounted next to the engineering building. Those provided power to the building, but also fed real-time energy generation data onto a screen that would-be engineers could study and learn from. Following the success of the massive new array, the school is now looking to create a new sustainable energy engineering program. “If we can train more of our students in solar engineering, we’ll be able to provide them with professional opportunities and provide our community with the kind of workforce that will draw more renewable manufacturers and providers to the Pueblo area,” says Garcia. “It’s about generating power in a way that’s clean and green, but it’s also about providing our students with an opportunity to learn about an energy source that we think is going to be increasingly important to our country in the future.” That’s a message echoed by BP Solar’s Chandler: “You’ve got people energized about the idea, and they can learn from it. That could be our next pool of engineers that we tap into.”

“We get the RECs we want, the installer makes a profit, and the host gets the offset on the energy bill at a locked-in, long-term rate,” says Dan Smith, director of economic development with Black Hills Energy.

Section 3:

ACT

verb 1. take action; do something; 2. take effect or have a particular effect; 3. behave in a specified way. 4. fulfill the function of. Now itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to get things accomplished and implement the plan. Following through with actions on all aspects of your plan will help you reach the desired results. It will also begin to ignite enthusiasm as the commitment becomes reality.

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A Reality Check Achieving campus climate neutrality is critically important but won’t be easy Walter Simpson, LEED AP, Author

In the last few years, the United States has seen a major shift in consciousness about global warming—and none too soon. This change came about for a number of reasons including the high profile activism of Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore and outspoken scientists like NASA’s Dr. Jim Hansen.

step up to the plate, and respond proactively in a leadership fashion.

While we owe a debt of gratitude to schools that take ACUPCC seriously, it is also, in a sense, a no brainer because to do otherwise would be to demonstrate profound irrelevance—“to fiddle while Rome burns.” Having spent all of my adult Reinforcing their efforts were tireless grassroots life in academia, first as a student and then as activists in communities across the land, an professional staff and adjunct faculty, I am well increasing number of smart, socially responsible aware of the ivory tower disconnect and have business leaders who acknowledged the reality always believed that academia should be socially of climate change and began shrinking their firms’ relevant and address the larger problems we face carbon footprints, and college and university on planet Earth. green campus advocates with a vision of higher education as environmental leader and a key The ACUPCC calls on higher education to re-focus piece in the climate action puzzle. academics and research in greener directions— an overdue and incredibly important undertaking. Noteworthy among climate action campaigns is With regard to campus operations, the ACUPCC the American College and University Presidents’ requires signatories to create and implement a Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), a national long-term plan that will shrink campus greenprogram now involving over 645 institutions of house gas emissions to zero. Given our collective higher learning whose presidents have pledged near-total reliance on fossil fuels, it is fair to ask: to achieve “climate neutrality” at the earliest Is this really possible? The answer is yes, but with possible date. This exciting initiative is rooted qualifications and the caveat that it won’t be easy. in a recognition that climate change is the most serious environmental problem our planet and While the devil will be in the details for each camspecies have ever faced, and it is essential that pus, in two broad strokes here’s how to achieve colleges and universities recognize this reality, campus climate neutrality:

•

Reduce campus greenhouse gas emissions (principally carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion) to a bare minimum through aggressive energy conservation and efficiency and the deployment of on-site renewable energy technologies; and Dispense with remaining fossil fuel reliance and greenhouse gas emissions with green power purchases or carbon offsets.

Adding to the challenge, the ACUPCC defines campus carbon footprint expansively to include not only the greenhouse gas emissions associated with on-campus fossil fuel burning and electricity purchases but also some “Scope 3” indirect emissions including those associated with student, faculty and staff commuting—surely, a tough, though important, nut to crack. Despite its difficulty, achieving climate neutrality is the right goal for colleges and universities. After all, the scientific community is telling us that industrialized countries like the United States must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050 to avoid atmospheric carbon dioxide levels exceeding 450 part per million and resultant runaway climate change. And some scientists like Jim Hansen question the 450 ppm threshold, arguing that the safe concentration of CO2 is probably 350 ppm—a level which has already been exceeded. While the debate continues on 450 vs. 350 ppm, there is a consensus that we must nearly quit fossil fuels use entirely and do it soon. Thus, real leaders need to get out there early (and, really, we are past “early” now) and go the extra mile—and that’s what the ACUPCC attempts to do.

I’ve had the honor of developing some resources, including a climate action planning guide, for the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and the ACUPCC. While here I am speaking for myself and not either program, I would like to share some insights gleaned from writing that guide and from the many years I spent on campus implementing energy and green campus programs.

there is a consensus that we must nearly quit fossil fuels use entirely and do it soon. Here is a reality check in the form of a dozen key points about campus climate neutrality: 1. Climate Action Plans Should Be Serious About Achieving Climate Neutrality. Because achieving climate neutrality is difficult, it is tempting to paint the goal as merely “aspirational,” i.e. to treat it as an aspiration and direction. But the climate emergency we face is real, and we must not just aspire to meet it. ACUPCC schools—and I would like to think all colleges and universities—should develop real plans that will really get them to net zero greenhouse gas emissions. 2. Climate Neutrality Dates Should Be Sooner Rather Than Later. It is tempting to plan to achieve climate neutrality at some very distant date—conveniently after current campus climate activists, administrators, and presidents will be

long gone—thus reducing costs and work load in the near term and postponing difficult decisions. But buying time and giving short shrift to this commitment is a luxury we don’t have. In 2006, Dr. Hansen rang the alarm and said we had just ten years to reverse course and, as a nation and world, get on a downward emissions trajectory. Yet since then, little has been done and our catastrophic path remains unchanged. If the national goal is a minimum of 80 percent greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2050, real college and university leadership requires achieving climate neutrality in ten or fifteen years at most.

if it were possible to structure a campus climate neutrality plan that would pay for itself, especially since energy conservation and efficiency improvements can be self-financing. But achieving climate neutrality in a reasonable time frame on the cheap seems very unlikely given the unavoidable and potentially substantial costs associated with implementing long payback energy conservation measures, installing extensive on-site renewables, and buying substantial amounts of green power and carbon offsets. I would point out that the vast majority of campus programs cost money and do not pay for themselves. Expending resources on climate neutrality is the cost of doing business and demonstrating genuine leadership during an environmental crisis.

5. Campus Climate Action Planning Should Be An Open And Inclusive Process. This is not a project for a bunch of experts or political confidants to accomplish in a locked room. To achieve the best possible climate action plan 3. A Super Commitment By Top Leadership with the greatest buy-in and chance of success, Is Essential. It’s great that so many college and it’s important to invite everyone to the table and university presidents have signed the ACUPCC. develop that plan together—collaboratively and However, probably not all knew what they were transparently. One way of increasing participagetting themselves into and how challenging it is tion in and support for the institutional climate to achieve climate neutrality. I fear that there will commitment is to promote a personal pledge that be many frustrated campus energy officers and students, faculty, and staff can take to achieve sustainability directors lamenting the inadequacy carbon neutrality in their own lives while makof their campus climate action plans unless col- ing specific personal contributions toward the lege and university presidents get more involved campus effort. in the climate action planning process on their campuses and assign this project the top priority 6. Energy Conservation Is Key. While solar is it deserves. sexy, the cleanest, fastest, and least expensive way of meeting energy needs—and reducing 4. Accept That Campus Climate Neutrality Will fossil fuel reliance—the best way is energy Involve Substantial Costs. It would be great conservation and efficiency. A smart climate neu-

This is not a project for a bunch of experts or political confidants in a locked room

trality plan will target deep cuts in energy use in campus buildings and use short payback energy conservation projects to financially leverage long payback energy conservation and renewable energy projects. Energy conservation also reduces the amount of costly on-site renewables, green power, and carbon offsets that will be required to achieve climate neutrality.

zero energy building. If that objective cannot be achieved, highly prioritize energy efficiency, renewable energy, and access to public transit as fundamental green design strategies while seeking the highest LEED rating possible.

9. Use Of Coal Needs To Be Phased Out. While this may be painful for some schools to contemplate, coal-burning campus heating plants and 7. Minimize New Construction. While many power plants need to be phased out and shut schools are engaged in prestigious campus down. Also, note that some schools purchase build-outs and everyone loves beautiful new their electricity from utilities or regional grids that green buildings, new construction adds to cam- are heavily reliant on coal-fired generation—and pus carbon footprints and thus makes reducing thus should strictly minimize electricity use to emissions and achieving climate neutrality that reduce coal-burning. Carbon capture and storage much harder. The exceptions to that rule are new (CCS) for coal plants, while much heralded, is not zero energy/zero carbon buildings, but how many here yet. When CCS does arrive in perhaps ten colleges and universities are building those? So it years, in all likelihood it will be very expensive and makes sense to examine all other options before not a practical solution for campus coal-burning. building new—and, typically, there are other options. That’s because campus space utilization 10. Make Effective Use Of Green Power And is notoriously inefficient and during certain parts Carbon Offsets. There is a great deal of skeptiof the year, such as summer months, campus use cism about buying renewable energy credits in general may be very low. Imagine how much (green power) and carbon offsets. This skepticism more activity is possible in existing buildings. is well founded because it’s often not clear that spending extra money to buy these financial 8. New LEED Buildings Are Not Good Enough. instruments has the desired effect of displacing LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Envi- fossil fuel-burning. Nonetheless, in the absence ronmental Design and is a green building rating of unforeseen “silver bullet” technological system created by the U.S. Green Building Council. breakthroughs that would allow colleges and While LEED is meritorious, many new LEED build- universities to vastly cut the amount of fossil ings have not been particularly energy efficient. fuels they consume and practically transition to The recent release of version 3.0 of LEED for New 100 percent on-site renewable energy, campus Construction is intended to correct that by alter- climate neutrality for the vast majority of schools ing LEED’s point structure to provide more credit will require substantial green power and carbon for design measures that reduce energy use and offset purchasing. Given this reality, ACUPCC inclimate impact. Bottom line: If your school must stitutions must explore strategies to make these construct a new building, set your sights on a options legitimate. Purchasing green power on

a long-term contract from a planned new wind farm (which would not be built otherwise) is one way to guarantee that green power purchases increase renewable capacity and actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Careful research can identify valid carbon offsets whose purchase does produce a real and additional reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. 11. Transitioning To Sustainable, Low-CarbonEmitting Commuting Will Be Challenging. As previously mentioned, ACUPCC institutions are committed to addressing the carbon footprint caused by student, faculty, and staff commuting. On commuter campuses, this footprint can be relatively large, and effective solutions are difficult to find. Colleges and universities can whittle down these emissions by promoting obvious alternatives to single occupant motor vehicle use as well as perhaps less obvious ones like telecommuting, distance learning, revised course schedules, and four-day work weeks. But it is likely that most schools will find this exercise inherently frustrating and solutions elusive. Carbon offsets will end up being a very big part of the commuting solution unless larger policy changes occur—which brings me to my last point.

adequate incentives to develop and implement advanced energy conservation and renewable energy technologies, and reform green power and carbon offset markets. Thus, ACUPCC forces participating institutions to recognize that effective campus climate solutions can only be achieved if they get involved in the wider community and become change agents for climate protection and sustainability—and that’s a good thing. The success of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment will be measured less by the number of institutions that sign it than by the number that actually achieve climate neutrality in the not-too-distant future and leverage the most change in the wider community in doing so—including by the good work of their graduates.

About the Author: Walter Simpson CEM, LEED AP, is a Buffalo, NY-based environmental activist and consultant who retired in 2008 from the University at Buffalo where for 26 years he served as campus energy officer and director of the UB Green Office. He is editor and co-author of The Green Campus: 12. Achieving Campus Climate Neutrality In- Meeting the Challenge of Environmental Sustainvolves Reaching Out And Affecting The Wider ability (APPA, 2008) and author of Cool Campus! Community. A real solution to the just mentioned A How-to Guide for College and University Climate campus commuter conundrum involves changes Action Planning (AASHE, 2009), which is available at in regional development patterns, new attitudes www.aashe.org/files/resources/cool-campustoward vehicle fuel efficiency, and vastly improved climate-planning-guide.pdf and in wiki format national and regional transportation policies that with contributions by others, www.aashe.org/wiki/ prioritize public transit over car and truck use. resources/cool-campus-climate-planning-guide Larger policy and societal changes are also required to clean up purchased electricity, provide

targeted green

Everyone is aiming for green solutions. But which ones are on target for you? It seems like everyone today is taking shots at how to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The hard part is determining which environmentally friendly solutions hit the mark. Enter the Honeywell Renewable Energy Scorecard™ – a patent-pending process that helps evaluate all the major forms of renewable energy and identify the ones that are practical in your situation and your area. So you’ll know exactly which technologies will work best and what the related payback periods will be. And that’s just the beginning of the energy-related services offered by Honeywell. We’re also experts at building systems automation, integration and modernization, and can help at every phase – from initial planning through installation, service and support. Backed with performance contracts and innovative power purchase agreements, no one offers more green solutions designed to keep your buildings in the black.

To start a green conversation and discuss your Renewable Energy Scorecard™ contact your Honeywell representative, visit www.honeywell.com/buildingsolutions/energy or call 1-800-345-6770, ext. 605. © 2009 Honeywell International Inc. All rights reserved.

Case Study

Student Life Fostering sustainable lifestyle choices in campus housing Case Study Sponsored by BAR Architects

pathway to the inner campus, students of the adjoining colleges have casually interacted, become familiar with each other, and are now developing new and exciting joint programs between the residential colleges. The enclosed redwood entry stairs are an important link between the apartments and the shared street. The stairs, made from trees harvested on the campus, celebrate vertical circulation as a communal meeting space. The In 1999, at the University of California at Santa lantern-like stair porches along the street edge Cruz, while the Leadership in Energy and Envi- create a transitional environment between ronmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating public and private zones where residents can System was still in its infancy, BAR Architects strengthen relationships and reinforce security designed new student housing that respects the with a literal â&#x20AC;&#x153;eyes on the streetâ&#x20AC;? presence. With surrounding environment and promotes social bright colors designed to glow at night, the interconnectivity. The careful planning of these stairs enliven the street, landmark the entries to residential colleges demonstrates that sustainable the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; homes, and serve as way-finding living can successfully occur in small footprints. beacons for passersby. The Porter Ridge Apartments, an infill project between two separate colleges, places strong emphasis on the use of a common street for circulation and connectivity. Lined with places to sit and interact, the shared street nurtures a public life for students who may never before have shared space or lived in close quarters. As the street has become a major pedestrian

To promote interaction at the Porter Meadow Apartments, entry stairs are configured to form an amphitheater for student gatherings. Designed to incorporate an existing grove of trees as a backdrop, the amphitheater is typically filled with students sitting on stairs and site walls, sharing food, beverages, and stories. Given that Porter and Kresge Colleges are

theater and arts colleges, the amphitheater also provides a place for impromptu performances and activities, as well as relaxation.

personal computer use, are provided alongside daylit ones.

Although architecture may only give nonverbal Interior spaces of the apartments are designed cues to sustainable living, our built environment to support shared living while providing neces- is filled with opportunities to shape life patterns sary individual private space. With careful that reinforce and support our engagement and consideration for individuals who may never interaction with the natural environment and each before have shared a kitchen or bathroom, the other. Thus, while seeking environmental balance, apartment spaces are carefully planned to pro- we must also create settings that inspire students vide a graded transition from shared to individu- to absorb the principles of a sustainable life and, ally claimed territories. Cubbies in the kitchens ideally, embrace a quality of living that contributes and baths store individual possessions, and the to and promotes an ethical and civil society. furniture gives everyone a compact sleeping and studying space. Through-building units (front to back) give superior access to daylight and natural ventilation in the coastal climate. Interior spaces that do not require natural light or B A R A RC H I T E C T S lower light levels, such as areas designated for

White Paper

Reframing Ehrlich Can Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s environmental impact equation lead to happiness? Ray C. Anderson, Interface, Inc.

More and more residents of Planet Earth are becoming aware of the gigantic global problem of climate disruption. Yet, as big and as challenging as climate is, it is not the whole problem. The whole problem is the decline of the biosphere, i.e., the living systems and life support systems of Earth, climate regulation being one very important function of just one of those life support systems, the atmosphere.

I would not dilute one iota the importance and the urgency of meeting the climate challenge, because it reaches into so many aspects of the even larger problem—biospheric decline. And now we are hearing from the scientists that the best case is a thousand-year recovery of the atmosphere, bringing temperatures back into the normal range, with huge disruptions in the thousand-year meantime.

After founding my company Interface in 1973, and shepherding it through start-up and survival, to prosperity and global dominance in its field, I read Paul Hawken’s book The Ecology of Commerce, in the summer of 1994. Hawken’s book charged business and industry as the major culprit and the only leader. He convicted me as a plunderer of Earth, and I challenged the people of Interface to lead our company and the entire industrial world to sustainability, which we defined as eventually operating our petroleumintensive company in such a way as to take from the Earth only what can be renewed rapidly and naturally by the Earth, and to do no harm to the biosphere. Take nothing. Do no harm. I simply said: “If Hawken is right, and business and industry must lead, who will lead business and industry? Unless somebody leads, nobody will. Why not us?”

It is with a great sense of urgency that I offer a solution to the biggest culprit in the massive

I became a recovering plunderer thanks to the people of Interface. I once told a Fortune Maga-

From plunderer to recovering plunderer to America’s greenest CEO in five years.

mistreatment of the Earth and the decline of the biosphere—business and industry. That happens to be where I have spent 53 years since my graduation from Georgia Tech in 1956 as an industrial engineer, cum aspiring-then-successful entrepreneur.

zine writer that someday people like me would go to jail. That became the headline of a Fortune article that went on to describe me as America’s greenest CEO. From plunderer to recovering plunderer to America’s greenest CEO in five years. That, frankly, was a pretty sad commentary on American CEOs, circa 1999.

you make things worse from an environmental point of view. Population is part of the problem. Affluence is part of the problem. And technology is part of the problem. In other words, impact comes from people, what they consume, and how it’s produced. Increase them all, and you’ve got a pretty good description of what’s been going on for the last three hundred years.

Asked later in the Canadian documentary The Corporation what I meant by the “go-to-jail” remark, I offered that theft is a crime, and theft of our children’s future would someday be a crime. But I realized that for this to be true—for theft of our children’s future to be a crime—there must be a clear, demonstrable alternative to the takemake-waste industrial system. It is this system that so dominates our civilization and is stealing our children’s future, by digging up the Earth and converting it to products that quickly become waste in a landfill or incinerator—digging up the Earth, converting it to pollution. There is a well-known environmental impact equation popularized by Paul and Anne Ehrlich that declares:

I = P × A × T I is environmental impact (the bigger, the worse), P is population, A is affluence, and T is technology. I know the equation is largely subjective. You can quantify people and, perhaps, affluence; but technology is abusive in too many ways to quantify, so the equation is conceptual. Still, it works to help us understand what is going on in the industrial system. Increase any of these factors, and

We might not have survived without sustainability. I thought about the characteristics of technology (T) as we practiced it at Interface, which makes carpets. It was extractive (taking raw materials from the Earth), linear (take-make-waste), powered by fossil fuel-derived energy, wasteful, abusive, and focused on labor productivity (more carpet per man-hour). So we set out at Interface in 1994 to transform the way we made carpet, a petroleum-intensive product for materials as well as for energy, and to transform our technologies so that they diminished environmental impact rather than magnified it. Thinking it thorough, I realized that all of those attributes of technology must be changed, to move the T to the denominator. Extractive must be replaced by renewable, linear by cyclical, fossil fuel energy by renewable energy (sunlight), wasteful by waste-free, abusive by benign, and labor productivity by resourceproductivity. And I reasoned that if we could

make the transformative changes in technology, (changing the T to T2 ),

I = P × A T2 Technology of the Future, and moving it to the denominator, i.e., I = P × A / T2), we could reduce our impact to zero, including our impact on climate. That became the Interface plan in 1996. It has been the plan ever since. I can tell you how far we have come in the ensuing twelve years: Net greenhouse gases, down 71 percent in absolute tonnage. Over the same span of time, sales increased by two-thirds and profits doubled. And an 82 percent, absolute, translated into a 90 percent reduction in intensity, relative to sales. This is the magnitude of the reduction that the entire global technosphere must realize by 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate disruption. Fossil fuel usage is down 60 percent per unit of production, owing to efficiencies and renewables. The cheapest, most secure barrel of oil is the one not used through efficiencies. Water usage is down 74 percent in our worldwide carpet tile business, and down 38 percent in our broadloom carpet business. We have diverted 175 million pounds (87,500 tons) of used carpet from landfills, closing the loop on material flows through reverse logistics and post consumer recycling technologies that did not

exist when we started fifteen years ago. Those new cyclical technologies have contributed mightily to the fact that we have produced and sold 83 million square yards of climate-neutral carpet since 2004, meaning no net contribution to global climate disruption in producing that carpet throughout the entire supply chain—from mine and well-head to end-of-life reclamation—independently thirdparty verified. We call it Cool Carpet™, and it has been a powerful market-place differentiator. We reckon we are a little more than half-way to our goal: zero impact, zero footprint. We have set 2020 as our target year for zero—for reaching the top of Mount Sustainability. We call this Mission Zero™. And we have found this Mission Zero to be incredibly good for business, a better business model. Here’s the business case for sustainability, from real-life experience: 1. Costs are down, not up, reflecting some $400 million of avoided cost in pursuit of zero waste, the first phase of Mount Sustainability. This has paid all of the costs for the transformation of Interface. 2. Products are the best ever, inspired by design for sustainability—an unexpected wellspring of innovation. 3. People are galvanized around a shared higher purpose. You cannot beat it for attracting and bringing people together. 4. And the goodwill of the marketplace is astonishing. No amount of advertising or clever marketing could have created as much, at any cost. Cost, products, people, marketplace. What else is there? It is a better business model. In those fifteen years, sales and profits steadily increased, except

during 2001–03, the longest, deepest recession in our industry since our start-up year, until the current recession—While our sales were down 17 percent during that last recession, the marketplace was down 36 percent. We might not have survived without sustainability.

How can we get all of business and industry to adopt this business model? There are many societal policies that must be changed. But one thing is certain: We will need a rapid, concerted and unprecedented effort by higher education to produce the necessary knowledge and graduates.

If every business were pursuing the Interface plan, would that solve all our problems? I don’t think so. I remain troubled by the revised Ehrlich equation (I = P × A / T2), even with benign technology to reduce the negative impact. The “A” is a capital “A”, suggesting affluence is an end in itself. But what if affluence were changed to lower-case “a”, suggesting that it is only a means to an end, the real end being happiness? Then the equation could be re-written yet:

This year’s fifth-graders are the graduating college seniors of 2020, the year Interface is targeting for zero footprint, total sustainability. What must those graduates have learned if they hope to work for

I = P × a T2 × H

happiness (H) ( more with less stuff (a). )

You know, that would redefine civilization—if not for our species, then perhaps for the one that succeeds us. This would be the sustainable species living on a finite Earth, ethically and ecologically in balance with nature and all her natural systems, for 1,000 generations, 10,000 generations, that is, into the indefinite future. But does the Earth have to wait for our extinction as a species? I don’t think so. At Interface, we really intend to bring the prototypical, sustainable, zero footprint industrial company fully into existence by 2020. We can see our way, now, clearly to the top of that mountain. It is now a challenge of execution.

We will need a rapid, concerted, and unprecedented effort by higher education to produce the necessary knowledge and graduates. Interface or other companies aiming for the same target? What must they have learned if they hope to be part of creating a sustainable society into the indefinite future? Certainly not internal combustion engines and all the rest of first Industrial Revolution learning. It must be the kind of holistic, interdisciplinary, systems-oriented collaborative learning that will result in achieving a sustainable society. As my good friend and advisor Amory Lovins likes to say: “If something exists, it must be possible.” If we can actually do it, it must be possible. If we can do it, anybody can. If anybody can, it follows that everybody can.

Why is this so important? Because a very dear person is at at risk. And that, frankly, is an unacceptable risk.

About the Author: Ray C. Anderson, Founder and Chairman, Interface, Inc.

Tomorrow’s Child Without a name; an unseen face And knowing not your time nor place Tomorrow’s Child, though yet unborn I saw you first last Tuesday morn. A wise friend introduced us two, And through his shining point of view I saw a day which you would see A day for you, and not for me. Knowing you has changed my thinking, For I never had an inkling That perhaps the things I do Might someday, somehow, threaten you. Tomorrow’s Child, my daughter-son, I’m afraid I’ve just begun To think of you and of your good, Though always having known I should. Begin I will to weigh the cost Of what I squander; what is lost If ever I forget that you Will someday come to live here too. Glenn Thomas, ©1996 Reprinted with Permission

The story is now legend; the “spear in the chest” epiphany Ray Anderson experienced when he first read Paul Hawken’s, “The Ecology of Commerce” seeking inspiration for a speech to an Interface task force on the company’s environmental vision. Fifteen years and a sea change later, Interface, Inc., is approximately half way to its target of “Mission Zero,” the journey no one would have imagined for the company, or the petroleum-intensive industry of carpet manufacturing, which has been forever changed by Ray’s vision. His Georgia-based company, Interface, Inc., was recently ranked number one in a GlobeScan survey of sustainability experts. The once captain of industry has eschewed his luxury car for a Prius and built an off-the-grid home, authored a 1998 book chronicling his epiphany, “Mid-Course Correction,” and has a new book chronicling his journey, “Confessions of a Radical Industrialist” coming in September 2009. He has become an unlikely screen hero in the 2004 Canadian documentary, “The Corporation.” He was named one of TIME International’s “Heroes of the Environment” in 2007. He’s a sought after speaker and advisor on all issues ecological, including a stint as co-chairman of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development and as an architect of the Presidential Climate Action Plan, a 100 day action plan on climate that was presented to the Obama Administration. To view footnotes please visit www.climateneutralcampus.com

Interview

Financing a Solar Solution

An Interview with BP Solar Chief Executive Officer Reyad Fezzani Reyad Fezzani is the Chief Executive Officer, BP Solar. He oversees the largest and renewable energy business in BP’s Alternative Energy portfolio. BP Alternative Energy invested $1.5 billion in 2006-2007, $1.5 billion in 2008 and is expected to exceed amount that in 2009. Fezzani spoke with the Climate Neutral Campus Report to offer his insights into financing a solar project, the unique challenges universities and colleges face when implementing solar projects and the scope of such an undertaking. Climate Neutral Campus Report: What would you say to leaders that are interested in solar but may not understand the cost of financing large solar installation?

offset your consumption. That is essentially the business model. Half of that business model is available through financing. Financing enables what is a very large purchase—compare it to a home owner making a large purchase like a new boiler—to be made but paid for a long time frame. You buy it, you install it and it runs itself and provides you the service you need. At some point it will require maintenance, so you want this to be a high quality product and well maintained. Because of the upfront cost, most people don’t have the cash readily available so they look for a financing offer.

A typically system might cost $25,000 to $35,000 to install. A commercial customer might need to buy some land or put solar panel on a roof top Reyad Fezzani: Our objective is to get the cost at and produce electricity. In the case of Wal-Mart, as low a level as possible and competitive with we supply electricity by installing and operating what you can get on the grid. We want to get solar systems on their roof. We do that with a solar technology as cheap as any other to use. In bank providing debt financing for the project order to do that we have been investing in reduc- and BP providing some equity investment into ing the cost of delivery to as low a level as pos- project. Wal-Mart essentially buys electricity from sible by investing in technologies and by being their own roof at a certain pre-set price. Typically innovative in the way we produce our electricity the banks that get involved in this, and there are from solar panels and solar systems. In the end, some specialists that also get involved in this the business model of solar requires the customer aspect of the project. Financial partners get to commit to buying the electricity at a certain involved because returns on solar projects can be price on a long term contract basis. We produce very attractive. the electricity for you and generate revenue to

We just did a deal with a large European insurance company and the profiles and the cash flow are stable because of the predictability of day light. That means the cash flow from the sale of electricity is relatively stable and therefore is very attractive for an investor. An investment like that with a good return and certain cash flows, even if it’s lower than what you get on the stock market, can be a very good portfolio investment of financiers.

utilities don’t see the value of solar because of the small scale and their priorities are elsewhere— like nuclear plants or coal plants. So, getting the utilities that support the institutions to see the value of solar and incentivize it is key. And then there is the whole issue of the contract ing process—the rules and regulations for how to actually buy solar energy may not be clear in a given state or jurisdiction. And the rules for how an academic institution can buy electricity from a project or solar development are also not clear.

There is also usually very complex procurement and government contracting procedures for most institutions and that can mean putting a plan into Typically institutions don’t action can take years. There are local complexities have a very good as well, such as building permission and consents, understanding of the land which have to be resolved. So, in some ways the portfolio they have. issues aren’t that much different from other customers but in many ways they are also often CNCR: Are there specific challenges that col- very specific to that college or university. leges and universities face when implementing a solar project? CNCR: Do you see any broad similarities about institutions you’ve worked with, whether it’s RF: Every Institution is different. Typically most the size of university or that they are privately don’t have a very good understanding of their land funded? Is their a pattern to the type of higher portfolio. They tend to have more land than they learning facility that looks to solar? think and it usually being under utilized. For us land is very valuable asset because we put the solar sys- RF: One characteristic that makes things work in tems on it. Universities and colleges typically have all of these installations is that there is a strong roof space on top of buildings. Again, the quality of leader of that institution that has a vision of what that roof space can be variable, but a good roof can they want to achieve and global view of how they withstand a very substantial solar system. can make that happen campus-wide. Their deterThen there are practical issues such as the need to mination and conviction to make these projects connect the solar system to the grid. Depending successful and to remove all the barriers is vital. on what state we are in the incentives for that In terms of type of organizations, we’ve done all can be poor or nonexistent. Some times the local kinds and sizes and I would say that a private

college or university is easier to work with. In general, private institutions have more flexibility by virtue of their own systems but they can still be as complex as governments. However, I think private institutions are easier—at least on paper.

much easier to do as you’ve solved the problems of approvals, permits, grid connections. CNCR: What are the timeline and scope for most of the projects?

We’ve seen that once an institution begins a project it becomes easier to do subsequent transactions. Once you go through the pain of a single project then you can repeat again and again. There is an economy of scale and an efficiency of scale. Once you complete the first project and you put the second one, we don’t have to put in all the grid connections because you can reuse them, There are definitely some benefits in have a multistage program or vision at least for how to go from single installations to multiple installations.

RF: They are typically 20 year agreements. The production of electricity is priced on a 20 year fixed price, which is attractive because the price of electricity can go up. Typically the pay back on the projects is seven years. The break period of seven years is very important. We want our product to perform really well and have customers making money and happy because they have amortized their investments.

CNCR: Are facilities doing these projects in multiple stages because they want to prove some re turn on investment (ROI) before adding another?

In general, private institutions have more flexibility by virtue of their own systems, but they can still be as complex as those of governments.

RF: They understand that once they’ve proved the concept and it generates the amount of electricity they expected and it has saved them a specific amount of dollars on their energy bill or reduced CO2 emissions, that there is great value. It’s a proofing out processing. Also, once you’ve arranged the financing and the banks are more likely to do a follow-on project. The approval process and the paper work for financing are already in place and so is the proof of concept. And if you work with a blue chip provider, like BP Solar, there is less of a barrier, because there is trust that BP stands behind the projects. Then the second and third projects become much,

CNCR: Is the seeming level of stability of leader ship in higher education versus the rapid turn over of executive leadership in the corporate world, helpful in implementing these projects? RF: We rely on educating the decision makers and we make in investment in them. They also get a lot of value from seeing through these projects from start to finish. You don’t want to have a constantly changing decision making process if you are trying to build a sustainable energy resource at an institution. Continuity is a very good

thing. You need a visionary leader to test out the agenda and clear the path for the first projects. Then it becomes easier to extend and expand. If you don’t have that leadership then you spend a lot of time doing months of presentations to lots of different people and in the end the various barriers stop projects from happening. CNCR: What would you say to those that are interested in solar energy but hadn’t yet taken the first steps? RF: The argument is entirely economic. The perceptions are no longer true that solar is expensive. The reality is that this is a very competitive product. It is no longer a choice to invest in renewable energy. We can all see the effects of climate change and the need for sustainability for the planet. Institutions have a role to be leaders in this way of working and change. These institutions are also educating the people who invent About the Author: these products and technologies and nurture the Headquartered in San Francisco, BP Solar is a global company with about 2,000 employees in thought leaders of tomorrow. ten countries. Solar is also an established technology in the sense that we are not dealing with the unknown. There is tremendous experience that has been gathered in this field. BP is nearly a 40 year old company. We are no longer dealing with innovation projects that have unproven performance. And the scale is of what we can build now is substantial. We are now involved in projects that are huge—a 100 mega watts and above. It’s amazing and there is no limit to how big installations can become as long as they have the land and the resources available. It’s a great time to be buying solar.

White Paper

A Holistic Approach to Green Building Higher education campuses need portfolio-wide building strategies as part of their efforts Doug Gatlin, U.S. Green Building Council

The role of buildings in promoting the triple bottom line—economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, and social equity—is clear. The Energy Information Administration reports that buildings contribute 39 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and are responsible for 72 percent of electricity use. But to truly have a positive impact on our climate, our dependence on foreign energy, our use of water, our preservation of dwindling resources, and our building operations budgets, building owners need a way to improve the performance of existing building stock, which is critical to realizing that goal. Campus sustainability programs today focus largely on recycling, energy, and water conservation measures; reduction of harmful chemicals and pesticides, and so on. These measures, along with other measurable and third-party-verified building performance considerations, are all included in the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance green building rating system. Many universities don’t realize that LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance can be applied across multiple buildings, but it can. It’s not about constructing one building at a

time; it is about implementing measures across a portfolio of buildings that can meet and exceed the LEED credits and prerequisites, and with LEED, the practices and measures that make buildings perform better quickly become second nature.

CSU Chico, Photo Courtesy of BAR Architects

Campuses of higher education are perfectly suited to apply holistic, portfolio-wide green building strategies as part of their campus sustainability efforts. With their commitment to innovation, their abundant supply of energetic young people intent on becoming the leaders of the future and insistent on attending schools that share their values, and their large stock of buildings of all ages, uses and types, colleges and universities are quickly becoming the driving force behind overall market transformation. And green buildings on campus give back to the school and the community, as they can serve as living laboratories and provide active, hands-on learning opportunities.

Institutions should capitalize on sustainability initiatives in alumni outreach, marketing, and community engagement and consider methods of publicizing such efforts.

UC Merced, Photo Courtesy of BAR Architects

Campus Master Plan The integrated-design approach has become synonymous with sustainability. In higher education, an integrated approach to greening a campus is critical for achieving the ultimate goal of a sustainable campus. All members of the community have a part in the process, and there are great opportunities for cross-departmental collaborations. Buildings and grounds offer a fertile environment for curriculum development and research, particularly in terms of sustainable technologies and strategies.

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One of the first steps to greening a campus is to review the campus master plan and identify strategies for integrating sustainability into design standards and long-range development plans. Master plans look at the future growth and development of a site and the infrastructure needed to support the inevitable construction. Plans should consider opportunities to increase density and retain open areas for natural habitat, thus promoting biodiversity. Comprehensive stormwater management techniques should

include best management practices of retaining stormwater runoff on-site through strategies such as the collection of rainwater, increased pervious surfaces, bioswales, constructed wetlands, and vegetated roofs. Institutions should consider discouraging parking development and employing alternative methods of transportation, such as campus shuttles and infrastructure that enables and promotes biking, while creating a pedestrian-friendly environment. As part of the University of California, Merced campus master plan, a large portion of land has been set aside as a natural reserve to remain undeveloped for the life of the campus. The future growth will take place in the southwestern corner of the university’s property near the town of Merced, building on existing infrastructure and helping to increase density while retaining open space and protecting habitats.

Campus Performance Plan Unlike a campus master plan, which looks at the future growth and development on a campus, a campus performance plan focuses on how the campus is functioning in terms of energy, water, and material consumption. In establishing a campus performance plan, institutions will need to assess their energy and water usage, review policies and practices such as purchasing, cleaning, and solid waste management, and begin to set up methods for measuring and monitoring these areas. LEED provides a framework to help guide the development of performance plans. Performance plans should include best management practices, such as metering and ongoing commissioning, and should establish schedules

for energy improvements such as mechanical upgrades, roof replacements, and lighting retrofits.

Student Involvement in LEED LEED offers a certification path which can be done completely in-house and by members of the campus community, including students. By engaging students in the process, institutions can lower documentation costs, provide valuable professional experience to students, and build institutional knowledge of LEED. At the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), former graduate student of the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, Jordan Sager, managed the institution’s twenty-five buildings pursuing certification under LEED for Existing Buildings v2.0. Sager also led the long-term greenhouse gas management for UCSB, including the purchasing of renewable energy credits. On the new construction front, the institution recently received LEED for New Construction Gold certification for the San Clemente Graduate Student Housing Project. This project is a great example of an integrated approach to sustainability, as it involved all members of the community, including students. The University of California, San Diego (UCSD), is also realizing what a valuable resource their students are in putting the school’s sustainability values into practice for real-life gains on campus. “UCSD campus facilities management has been committed to successfully implementing the green building policy, but with tight budgets and limited manpower, they needed a way to keep costs

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Establishment of an Office of Sustainability Another step toward green building success on campus is the creation of an office of sustainability. Harvard University is a fine example of an institution that has established an office of sustainability and is building in-house knowledge and expertise. Since its inception in 2001, the office has grown to a staff of more than fifteen and offers a multitude of services, ranging from green building to green financing, through a revolving loan fund. The road to a green campus will differ for each higher education institution, but the most imdown and maximize staff time,” Building Commis- portant thing is to take the first steps, then keep sioning & Sustainability Director David Weil wrote moving forward. in USGBC’s March 2009 Higher Education Update e-newsletter. The solution? Student interns. A team of green campus and engineering interns employed by campus facilities management has since played About the Author: an integral role in seeking LEED certification for the Doug Gatlin is vice president for market UCSD Campus Services Complex under version 2.0 development at the U.S. Green Building Council, of the LEED for Existing Buildings rating system. overseeing the family of LEED rating systems With responsibilities ranging from credit-pursuit in all major commercial market segments and selection to documentation preparation, students managing overall customer relations for LEED and the council’s new pilot initiative, the Portfowere the key to the success of the project. lio Program. He has sixteen years’ experience in And at Duke University, the Home Depot Smart energy and environmental policy and has worked Home was built as a live-in research lab. It on climate-change response strategies and volachieved LEED for New Construction Platinum untary pollution-prevention programs. certification in June, 2008. The project was conceived of as part of a student thesis and is To view sources please visit www.climateneutralcampus.com now run by students living in the home. During the course of the project, more than 450 students were involved in some aspect of it, and several represented Duke as part of the project team. UC Davis, Photo Courtesy of BAR Architects

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Is there a better way to go green?

The path to a green building starts with a solid foundation. Our people, solutions and services take the guesswork out of making your green building goals a reality — whether using renewable resources, improving indoor environmental quality or developing energy-efficiency and emissions-reduction programs. In addition, we can help you earn an ENERGY STAR® label and achieve LEED™ certification. With Siemens, you can be certain that your green initiatives benefit the environment as well as your bottom line. For more information go to: usa.siemens.com/buildingtechnologies.

Answers for infrastructure.

White Paper

Reducing Computer Power Consumption How IT and facilities can both win in the savings race Dmitry Shesterin, Faronics

Until recently, the focus in reducing IT energy consumption has been on the data center, and vendors have pursued a variety of exotic costcutting technologies that range from server virtualization to storing energy in flywheels instead of batteries. But there is another opportunity for substantial reductions in power usage: the desktop. The energy used by 1,000 workstations in one year is equivalent to 880 barrels of oil, or 43,180 gallons of gasoline. Assuming those 1,000 computers are always on, this energy costs more than $90,000. All these numbers can be significantly reduced by the simple practice of turning off desktop computers when they are not in use.

IT departments can be convinced to deploy a power reduction solution that does not impose burdens of its own.

Managing Desktop Power Consumption Facility departments foot the energy bill. Therefore, any way to reduce energy waste and costs is certainly explored. Reducing computer energy is one such way, but has always been a problem because IT departments have in the past cited four reasons why computers cannot be turned off during downtimes:

IT departments need the not-in-use periods to perform routine maintenance such as patching and installing updates. If workstations have been shut down manually or via standard operating system functionality, maintenance is impossible.

Defining â&#x20AC;&#x153;not in use.â&#x20AC;? The standard power-saving functions that come with the Microsoft Windows or Mac operating systems rely solely on the absence of mouse and keyboard activity, which is often not an accurate indicator of computer activity.

Defining what it means for a computer to be powered down. Is it in standby, hibernating, or totally off?

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Reporting. The operating system’s power-saving func- About the Author: tions cannot provide any data about the number Dmitry Shesterin is Faronics’ Vice President of Marketing. His previous experience includes of hours the computers are on or off. working for Siemens and Seiko EPSON. Dmitry That said, there are ways that IT and facilities can has taken a strong interest in green business work together. IT departments can be convinced practices after seeing how much of an effect to deploy a power-reduction solution that does our daily practices have on the environment. As not impose any burdens of its own. It must be a result, Dmitry assembled a Carbon Neutrality non-intrusive and deployable via all the popular Task Force at Faronics which he also co-chairs. desktop-management tools. Through the efforts of the CNTF, Faronics has become a carbon neutral company as of 2009.

The energy used by 1,000 workstations in one year is equivalent to 880 barrels of oil, or 43,180 gallons of gasoline. Using a power-saving product dramatically reduces computer energy costs by turning off desktop computers when not in use, without impeding IT’s ability to manage workstations. Such products can eliminate up to 70 percent of Windows and Mac computer energy waste, equating to savings of up to $40,000 per year for every 1,000 computers such products are deployed on. It is also important that the power saving product selected be nondisruptive to the user and IT, while delivering real savings to the facility department. By using an enterprise energy management solution, IT and facility departments can work together to reduce an educational institution’s energy bill and carbon footprint.

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Case Study

Solar With a Twist An Oregon university finds a financially viable way to go green Case Study Sponsored by Honeywell

It takes a lot of courage to deviate from the norm. However, Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, is reaping the benefits of trying something new and different. The college recently partnered with Honeywell on a power purchase agreement, the first of its kind for a college or university in Oregon, that is saving the school at least $200,000 in energy costs over the next twenty years. Under the agreement, Solar panels on the roof of Pamplin Sports Center at Lewis & Clark College are expected to save the school at least Honeywell installed solar panels on the roof of $200,000 in energy costs over the next twenty years. the institution’s Pamplin Sports Center and is selling the electricity the panels produce to learn about green technology, and serves as a model for what I hope are many more projects the college. like this all over Oregon. It’s a great example in which the environment wins while the education and business sectors thrive.” The panels generate more than 97,000 kWh of electricity annually and produce enough power to meet about 15 percent of the electricity needs for a facility like the Pamplin Sports Center. And they deliver environmental benefits, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 1.8 “This project benefits the college and our com- million pounds over the course of the twenty-year munity in many ways,” said Thomas Hochstettler, agreement. According to figures from the U.S. Enpresident of Lewis & Clark College, an ACUPCC vironmental Protection Agency, this is equivalent signatory. “It supports our vision toward sustain- to removing more than 180 cars from the road ability, offers our students the opportunity to for a year.

It’s a great example in which the environment wins while the education and business sectors thrive.

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In addition to cost and environmental benefits, the solar installation provides an educational tool that faculty use to teach students about renewable energy and conservation. Professors and students are able to see the real-time electrical output of the solar technology through a Web portal and learn how the system operates. Energy Trust of Oregon, a public-purpose organization that promotes the use of efficient energy technologies and renewable resources, helped fund part of the project. Honeywell also worked with Advanced Energy Systems, an Energy Trust Trade Ally based in Eugene, Oregon, to install the solar panels. “This type of agreement is a financially viable way for organizations to go green,” says Kacia Brockman, solar program manager for Energy Trust of Oregon. “Lewis & Clark is leading the way for other schools and creating advocates for solar energy in the process.” The Honeywell project is a significant example of the college‘s commitment to the environment. Along with being part of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), Lewis & Clark faculty and students founded the Focus the Nation environmental initiative, a one-day national “teach-in” aimed at bringing academia and government together to find global warming solutions. The college also meets more than 30 percent of its electrical energy requirements through a grassroots renewable energy advocacy program that funds the use of green power through voluntary student donations.

A technician checks the output of solar panels in a system that will generate approximately 15 percent of the electricity needs for the Sports Center.

Professors and students are able to see the real-time electrical output of the solar technology through a Web portal and learn how the system operates.

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White Paper

Greening with Virtualization

How to make IT and the datacenter less power hungry Rob Smoot, VMware

Rising energy costs and consumption in datacenters is a hot topic whether you care about saving money, deploying new IT services, keeping the datacenter running, or sparing the environment. As energy climbs the list of corporate priorities, green IT solutions are seemingly everywhere. Prioritizing potential fixes is not easy amidst this flood of information. There is no silver bullet, but server virtualization often tops the list because it downsizes the largest culprits of energy overconsumption—underutilized x86 servers. However, this is only part of the story. You might be surprised to learn that several innovations in virtualization are further reducing energy demands and driving a revolution in the datacenter.

Arguably the largest contributor to this inefficiency is massive underutilization of IT’s primary computing element—the x86 servers. Datacenters: Power-Hungry, Energy Inefficient, and Expensive Datacenters are huge consumers of electricity. A recent report by the EPA claims datacenters in the U.S. consume 4.5 billion kWh annually, 1.5

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percent of the country’s total.1 Perhaps more importantly, this figure doubled from 2000 to 2006, and if trends continue will double again in the next few years. This trend is a global one. Imagine how energy demands from datacenters will increase in countries like India and China as their populations and commerce increasingly go online. Increasing energy demand in datacenters is inevitable given how central they are to our lifestyle and businesses in the Information Age. Today’s datacenters are extremely inefficient at converting energy into useful IT output. These inefficiencies include power distribution, physical layout, and inefficient hardware and software design, to name a few. However, arguably the largest contributor to this inefficiency is massive underutilization of IT’s primary computing element—the x86 server. These servers are the largest IT consumer of electricity, 80 percent of the total IT load in 2006.2 Yet because they typically house only a single application, their processors sit idle 85 percent to 95 percent of their short lives, drawing massive amounts of electricity around the clock. This inefficiency is so rampant that analyst firms suggest that as much as three years of excess hardware capacity exists in the industry. With more than 7 million servers sold annually, this represents more than 20 million servers!

Increasing energy prices around the world have made all this inefficiency not only wasteful but extremely expensive. Energy costs are increasing 20 percent or more per year in many geographies and this trend is expected to continue. The net result is that companies will spend more on powering and cooling servers than on buying them in the first place over the next few years. And when datacenters run out of power and cooling capac- Rising energy consumption in the datacenter ity, new space is extremely expensive to build or lease. Executives are paying attention as energy is typical, but some companies are consolidating and expansion costs consume their budgets and as many as thirty or forty workloads onto a server, depending on the size of the workloads and the crowd out other investments. server. As you might expect, dramatically reducing As a result of increasing energy demands on server count has a transformational impact on IT inefficient and outdated datacenters, many com- energy consumption. Utilization of x86 servers panies are simply running out of power and/or increases from between the typical 5 percent and capacity. In some cases the utility cannot provide 15 percent to between 70 percent and 80 percent. additional power and in others the equipment is There is a flow—through effect from needing so power-hungry and dense that the datacenter fewer physical servers and higher utilization. It runs out of capacity even though the datacenter means virtualization users need less space in the is not physically full. This trend is expected to datacenter, and less electricity and cooling. The continue. Analyst firms and industry research effect is transformational, often reducing energy suggest a majority of datacenters will be affected cost and consumption related to those servers by by this power crisis in the next few years. These 70 percent to 90 percent. companies are looking for relief and often find it in server consolidation, which is a foundational While consolidation reduces energy requirements significantly at a point in time, IT loads shift element of creating a green datacenter. depending on the time of day or month but also as companies grow and business requirements Server Consolidation change. For example, if a server is running an Virtualization is not a panacea for every IT woe, but Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application it can definitely help overturn these dire forecasts. that has a spike in usage at the end of every One of the mainstay use cases of virtualization— month, the server must be sized for that peak server consolidation and containment—allows usage scenario. This same scenario often happens customers to “squeeze” multiple application with the rest of the IT load, namely storage and and operating system workloads on the same networking, as well as cooling infrastructure. This server. Ten workloads on a single physical server phenomenon is part of the reason why so much

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excess IT capacity exists in the market. What was needed and what virtualization has delivered is a way for IT infrastructure to become as dynamic as the applications and businesses that depend on it. The impact of virtualization on energy consumption is so significant that utilities in North America such as PG&E, Southern California Edison, SDG&E, BC Hydro, and Austin Energy are paying customconsolidation dramatically decreases hardware ers to remove servers through consolidation.3 Server and associated support requirements. These programs compare the energy use of existing equipment to that of remaining equipment in service after consolidation. Incentives are based on the net reduction in kilowatt-hours from direct energy savings (cooling costs are excluded) from the project and can be as high as $300 per server and $4 million per physical site. Incentive programs are cheaper than creating new power plants and, of course, much better for the environment. They validate the energy impact of virtualization at a time when every technology Dynamically rebalancing workloads with virtualization is claiming to be green or energy efficient. Nothing is more energy efficient in a datacenter than eliminating servers that are not doing much work with no disruption to the application or end users. Additionally, this technology can be extended and consuming lots of energy. even further by allowing customers to dynamiRight-Sizing Virtual Infrastructure cally rebalance servers across an entire pool of servers on an ongoing basis. Of course, some suggest that virtualization is a one-time benefit when servers are removed. Dynamically rebalancing of workloads across What about after the initial consolidation? the datacenter can also be used to optimize for energy utilization. This functionality promises to Virtualization changes the game by converting transform energy consumption in the datacenter physical servers and their execution state into by automatically shrinking or expanding the pool software files which can easily be copied and of servers running at any given time without moved, which makes hardware infinitely more reducing service levels. Such functionality works flexible. As software data files, virtual machines by monitoring the utilization of a pool of servers can easily be migrated from one server to another and when excess capacity exists, it moves run-

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ning virtual machines onto fewer servers and automatically shuts down unneeded physical servers. Exactly what â&#x20AC;&#x153;excess capacityâ&#x20AC;? constitutes is controlled by the user. For example, this can include a buffer of capacity for automatic failover by allowing customers to continuously optimize and reduce energy consumption of a pool of hardware without sacrificing the reliability and availability of IT infrastructure. The net result is that customers today can right-size their IT infrastructure real-time, thereby maximizing the output of IT while consuming the least possible energy.

The Environmental Impact In addition to the bottom-line effect and flexibility, there is something to be said about the environmental impact of virtualization. Every server that is virtualized saves companies 7,000 kWh of electricity and 4 tons of carbon emissions per year. For example, if more than a million workloads are running in virtual machines, the aggregate power savings are about 8 billion kWh, which is more than the heating, ventilation, and cooling electricity consumed in New England in a year.4 These savings are only the start, thanks to the rampant over-supply of hardware in the industry mentioned previously. To put three years of excess capacity in perspective in terms of its environmental impact, 4 tons of CO2 annually per server represents 80 million tons of CO2 emissions per year, which is equal to the emissions of half of all countries in Latin America.5 Only 5 percent of physical servers have been consolidated to date, but now that virtualization has become

Every server that is virtualized saves schools 7,000 kWh of electricity and 4 tons of carbon emissions per year.

mainstream, forecasts suggest that a majority of servers will be consolidated using virtualization in the next few years. Server consolidation and dynamic ongoing right-sizing of IT will have a huge economic and environmental effect.

About the Author: Rob Smoot is responsible for marketing vCenter datacenter virtualization management products at VMware. Previously, he was a senior manager at Veritas Software where he held various roles with responsibility for pricing, licensing, and product and market strategy for datacenter availability solutions. Prior to Veritas, Smoot was a manager at Andersen, where he led business process reengineering engagements for software and high-technology clients.

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Section 4:

REPORT

verb 1. give a spoken or written account of something; 2. convey information about an event or situation. Having a commitment, a plan and taking action is all good, but you must carefully track the results and report them in order to know whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s working. You must also carefully measure your success in order to determine your return on investment.

White Paper

Moving Sustainability From Ideas to Action Two years into its commitment to sustainability, Southern Miss. is working to create culture change Mona A. Amodeo, Ph.D., idgroup

As Bob Dylan once wrote,” For the times they are a-changin.” Never in the history of mankind has that simple declaration been so true as now. The rising tide of social, environmental, and economic challenge is creating an undeniable impact on every aspect of society compounded by climate change, corporate greed, issues of over-consumption, and a plethora of social and environmentally induced health issues. We are swimming in the waters of uncertainty and the powerful currents of change. Traditional ways of thinking, acting, and doing are simply not sufficient to cope with the challenges we are facing as a global society. What is needed is a new paradigm that rejects segmented thinking in favor of a more systemic perspective, offering hope for creating innovative solutions to sustain our quality of life, while ensuring our children and future generations inherit a viable world. A variety of factors including societal shifts, a growing chorus of people calling for change, and an increasingly compelling business case in its favor, has moved sustainability from the fringe to the forefront. It has become a major topic of conversation in boardrooms and executive suites in organizations of every shape and size. In every

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corner of the globe, leaders seem to be wrestling with what sustainability means to their organization, its viability and how to effectively engage people in “walking the talk.” A comment from an executive in a recent conversation we had about sustainability offers a snap shot of the current situation,“ if you and I had talked about this subject a couple of years ago, I would have politely listened, but really would not have thought much about the conversation after you walked out the door. Today, I am still not sure exactly what sustainability means to our organization, but I know I need to find out.” This short segment of conversation is symbolic of the increasing interest in sustainability, but also reflects the need for guidance about how to create meaning and how to bring these values into institutional cultures. Institutions of higher education have a unique opportunity to fill this need through research and influence and perhaps, most importantly, by becoming living laboratories that can help us learn how to develop sustainability-focused cultures. The University of Southern Mississippi is one of the more than 645 higher education institutions that have embraced this challenge

through their commitment to the American Col- Reaching beyond simply going green, in July 2008, lege and University Presidents’ Climate Commit- she created and funded the Office of Sustainability ment (ACUPCC). and named Larry Lee as the full-time sustainability officer. The office and initiative budgets were funded by the projected savings from energy and The Southern Miss. Story recycling programs, which Lee proposed as the In March 2007, Martha Dunagin Saunders became first initiatives. Saunders reinforced her level of the ninth president of the University of Southern commitment to this sustainability initiative durMississippi. When she took the reins, she had a lot ing her presidential inaugural speech in May 2008, of ideas, but unlike many leaders, she decided to and again in the 2008 Fall Convocation. On both listen before she spoke. Between September and occasions, her message spoke to the true potential December 2007, Saunders engaged our team of of sustainability by communicating that this was consultants to help her understand the strengths, not just the right thing to do, but also the smart hopes, and dreams of her campus community. The thing to do from an economic perspective. By “core dialogue design” engaged a cross-section the summer of 2008, the goal of becoming a of stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff, sustainable university community had been comleadership, alumni, business people, and com- municated. What that really meant and how to munity members. The data gathered from these achieve this vision had not. sessions produced five areas of strategic focus. The areas were then used by President Saunders Find a Few Friends. Light a Few Fires. to frame the development of the Southern Miss. With the direction set and her commitment clear, Strategic Plan. The focus on creating a culture Saunders gave authority to people on the ground to of healthy minds and bodies emerged from the make it happen. In Lee, Saunders found a man on process. A sub-theme of this area was a desire for a mission—to help her ensure the campus would be viable forty years from now. “It is sometimes a the campus to “go green.” bit of a challenge to be a tree hugger in a red state,” he smiles, clearly understanding and embracing the Leadership Commitment In April 2008, President Saunders took the first challenge. “There are a lot of people who don’t comsteps to lead her campus toward fulfilling the pletely understand what we are saying when we strategic goal of “going green.” She signed the talk about sustainability, but we have a strong base American College and University Presidents’ of students and faculty who have joined the cause,” Climate Commitment publicly proclaiming the says Lee. “Fertile soil to plant the seeds of change.” University’s goal to become climate neutral. This was not the first time she had signed on Lee, together with his small mission-driven to Commitment. As Chancellor of the Univer- team welcome the challenge, choosing to meet sity of Wisconsin-Whitewater, she had been a the community where they are by speaking language people understand and providing many charter signatory. opportunities for people to get involved.

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In addition to Lee, The Office of Sustainability is staffed by Haley McMinn, a full-time graduate assistant working on her Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration at Southern Miss.; and Shawn Litton, the Recycling Program manager. This core team depends upon student, staff, and faculty volunteers to provide the necessary manpower and advocacy for the programs.

As with any change initiative, perhaps the most important factor of success is the ability to hold to the vision and mission while maintaining the tension between where you are and where you are going.

Create a Plan and Execute Southern Miss. head football coach Larry Fedora uses the mantra Attack! Attack! Attack! to fire up his players. This same call to action is how the sustainability team got off the ground. Before the Office of Sustainability even had a sign on its door, Lee and McMinn sat in a room together and quickly filled the whiteboard in front of them with all they wanted to accomplish. From that session, the vision and mission of the Office of Sustainability was born, and what would become known as the Southern Miss. Green Initiative and the EcoEagle Sustainability program took shape.

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Heeding advice from sustainability experts and the best of what the team gleaned from their research, an action plan was put in place and implemented by the beginning of the 2008–09 academic year, just two months after the Office of Sustainability officially opened. Two principles guide the Southern Miss. Green Initiative: KISS (keep it simple, stupid) and GBOSH (Go big or stay home). GBOSH defines the aggressive, “can do” attitude and entrepreneurial personality of this initiative. The Vision Statement: The University of Southern Mississippi will strive to become a model of sustainable thought and practice within our state and region. Through development of ideas and programs, we will encourage healthy dialogue, forward thinking, and behaviors that instill a collective awareness and concern of how our impact affects future generations. The Mission Statement: Our operations will function at all times in mindful accordance with the tenets of sustainability, and we will leverage our strength as a research institution to encourage thought leadership, knowledge communities, and innovation within the realm of sustainability. University Climate Commitment Council: The University Climate Commitment Council (UC3) is a 17-member group comprised of faculty, staff, and students on the University of Southern Mississippi campus. The mission of this council is to oversee all campus efforts regarding sustainability and to ensure that the university is consistently in compliance with the ACUPCC.

Connecting Branding, Identity Dynamics, and Culture Change

refer to me as a “good parent” because I am concerned about the safety of my family (image). This reinforcing loop strengthens my commitment One of the first steps in engaging the campus to Volvo to the point that Volvo is me and I am was to name and visually brand the initiative. Volvo. This same cycle can be leveraged to create The Southern Miss. Green Initiative became the connection to sustainability. Over time, a tipping official name, while EcoEagle was adopted as point is reached as more and more people “get the programming and educational portion of the it.” The values of sustainability and associated initiative. Working with the university’s Office behaviors become a part of the cultural core of of Communications, the team did a good job the organization. leveraging the connections to Southern Miss. (the golden eagle is the school mascot) while creating The first step in any successful branding process a strong and recognizable visual brand for the is to create awareness and to awaken people to office and its programs. Beyond the visual brand, the issues at hand. If I don’t believe safety is an the initiative employed messaging that built on important issue, the identity of Volvo as a safe emotion and logic to begin to tell the team’s story. vehicle is irrelevant to me. If people don’t understand why they should care, they won’t. And so it Sustainability-focused: Messages communi- is with sustainability initiatives. cated through a well-designed strategic branding program will tap into the natural connections between identity (who I am), image (what others say about me), and behavior (what I do) facilitate the success of sustainability initiatives and support From the beginning, the Southern Miss. Green the ultimate goal of culture change. By culture Initiative focused on engaging and educating the change, I mean changing the beliefs, attitudes, campus, getting people involved, and creating and values to the point that sustainable behavior opportunities for small wins and celebration. Bebecomes second nature. low is a list of programs that were implemented in the first year. Each of these programs is clearly Connecting the Dots: Branding programs create explained on the Green Initiative website perceptions designed to create identification and www.usm.edu/green. connection. The ultimate goal of all branding is to influence behavior, and behavior is directly tied to values, which in turn is connected to identity. For example, Volvo=safety (the perception). My fam- EcoEagle Programs ily’s safety is important to me (values), therefore I • Film Series drive a Volvo (behavior). This behavior is a reflec- • Lecture Series tion of who I am and what I believe (my identity). • Bike Program This identity is reinforced when other people • Recycling Program

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• • • • •

EcoEagle Representatives Farmers Market News (our new newsletter) RecycleMania Reycling Services

Goals • Expanded Earth Week Celebration • Completion of GHG Emissions Inventory • Beginning of Carbon Neutrality Plan • Improvements to the Website • Curriculum Development • Energy Conservation / Mitigation / Management

growing identity and image of Southern Miss. as a sustainability-focused campus. As discussed previously, image is an important factor in providing the feedback necessary for gradually changing culture. The Green Initiative website (www.usm.edu/green) is the official storytelling site for the Office of Sustainability. It is clearly branded, simple, and populated with relevant information. The site also serves as a megaphone, calling the Southern Miss. community to step up, take responsibility, and get involved.

The Journey Continues

As the Southern Miss. Green Initiative enters its second year the team members are very proud of the multi-pronged program they have developed and of the inroads they have made. The plan is to continue the crusade to engage the hearts of the Like pushing a snowball Southern Miss. community through the various uphill, this can be exhausting, EcoEagle programs. In this next year, the office especially in the beginning. will continue to work from both the emotional and educational angles, but will also focus on the operational aspects of the initiative. Working to Tell the Story institutionalize sustainability into the operations Don’t be afraid to tell your story. Be clear and authen- and policies of the community will set expectatic about what you are doing. This advice has guided tions and define behaviors. the Southern Miss. communication efforts. Part of building awareness about and connection to the This will be accomplished over the next year Southern Miss. Green Initiative is consistently shar- through the creation of the Southern Miss. Climate ing what is happening. Over the past year, articles Action Plan (CAP), which focuses on the goal of about the Southern Miss. efforts have appeared in becoming climate neutral and on incorporating USA Today, as well as newspapers in Hattiesburg and sustainability into the university’s curriculum. A Jackson, MS and various online media. No doubt deadline for the plan has been set for May 2010. this is a work in progress, but the Southern Miss. The Office also plans to adopt the ASSHE STARS Office of Sustainability is happy to talk to anyone Assessment program as the metrics that will deand everyone about their successes and challenges. fine and measure success of the initiative. This external attention has served to reinforce the

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Final Thoughts

commitment to creating synergistic relationships among economic prosperity, environmental stewardship, and social justice can result in tremendous upside in terms of tangible returns. Our experience has shown realized benefits can include an enhanced reputation, a more powerful brand, increased goodwill, increased employee engagement, increased competitive edge, a more energized and vision-driven workforce and increased efficiencies. All of this translates to real bottom-line benefits. Simply stated, people want to be connected to things bigger than themselves. Sustainability offers that opportunity. As Saunders proclaimed in her inaugural address, this is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do on many fronts.

Success of the Southern Miss sustainability initiative will ultimately be defined by the degree to which the program reaches beyond cognition to really getting people to care—to move from doing green to being green, and from being green to embracing sustainability as a deeply held set of values. As with any change initiative, perhaps the most important factor of success is the ability to hold to the vision and mission, and maintain the tension between where you are and where you are going. In the early stages of any change process, people must be moved from indifference to understanding. This change is accomplished incrementally by constantly educating, prodding, and inspiring, but never giving up. Leveraging branding processes and knowledge of identity dynamics can be valu- As living laboratories of research and learning able in developing and designing an initiative. institutions of higher education have a unique and powerful opportunity to lead the way in Like pushing a snowball uphill, this can be exhaust- showing us how to create cultures which fully ing, especially at the beginning. The team at South- embrace the values of sustainability. Who ern Miss. will tell you they are making progress, better to take on this challenge? people are joining in, but at times it is frustrating. And, while there is evidence of growing interest and intent on the part of the campus community “to do the right thing,” creating identification with About the Author: sustainability is a work in progress. The goal at Mona A. Amodeo, Ph.D. works at the intersecSouthern Miss. is to change the way people see tion of research and practice to engage organizathemselves. This will ultimately shift the belief tions in building extraordinary brands on cultures systems, associated behaviors, and attitudes to a of engagement and execution. As founder and tipping point where sustainability becomes a way president of idgroup Consulting and Creative, she of life. This takes time, focus, and passion. It is not puts to use her research-based understanding of a mission for the faint of heart, or for those with the relationship between culture change, branding, and sustainability to help clients flourish. tepid intent for creating real change. Over and over through our research and experi- To view sources please visit www.climateneutralcampus.com ences, we have seen that an organization’s serious

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Case Study

Indiana U. Moves to Virtualization Kelley School of Business deploys solution across entire infrastructure Case Study Sponsored by VMware

The challenge for one of the country’s top business schools, Kelley School of Business at Indiana University at Bloomington, was to improve IT services while cutting spending and expose students to virtualization technology, which is a vital part of datacenters.

The university began virtualizing its datacenters with VMware Infrastructure in 2001. Encouraged by those results, the Kelley School decided to experiment with VMware technology. “We started a project to virtualize just my labs about four or five years ago,” recalls Jared Beard, associate director of the Kelley School’s Information TechThe solution was to use VMware technology nology Labs and Studios. “The pilot was such a across the school’s infrastructure and in the class- success, we used it to make the business case for room to improve IT services, pare costs, and give expanding our VMware implementation. These students the virtualization know-how they need days most of our new servers are virtualized. In to succeed in the work force. fact, VMware virtual machines have become our de facto standard and our environment is now To do that, the Kelley School used VMware Infra- 100 percent virtualized.” structure 3 Enterprise, featuring: • ESX 3 with VMFS The drive for greener IT is a key reason the Kelley • vCenter 2 School favors virtual machines over physical hosts. • VMware Workstation “The university is pursuing a major green initiative, and our group is at the forefront of that,” Beard The deployment environment included: explains. “Virtualization is a very simple way of • Hardware: HP Proliant DL385 attached to an going green because it lets us run a system that’s ECM CX3-20 SAN as streamlined as it’s going to get. When we need • Operating systems: Red Hat Enterprise Linux more servers, we use VMware software to add 4 and 5, Microsoft Windows Server 2000 and virtual ones. We don’t have to go out and buy new 2003, Windows XP, Vista, and Cacti hardware, more UPS, or additional infrastructure.” • Mission-critical applications running in production in virtual machines: Microsoft Besides making it easier to be green, the Kelley SQL Server 2000 and 2008, SharePoint 2.0 School has reaped a slew of other benefits from and 3.0, and Symantec Ghost deploying VMware Infrastructure, including dramatically lowering hardware costs as a result

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of migrating from twenty IBM servers to a single HP platform, a CPU-utilization rate that’s jumped from around 2 percent to 70 percent, and far easier and faster server provisioning and maintenance. “We’ve been able to increase the services that we offer, providing servers to our faculty and students much faster than we’d ever anticipated,”Beard reports. “Best of all, we’ve increased those services while substantially cutting costs.” Cutting costs is important at the state-funded Kelley School, which, like so many other schools and businesses these days, is looking for ways to tighten its belt.“The State of Indiana is going through tough financial times like everyone, so we’re doing some restructuring to increase efficiencies,” Beard says. “VMware technology is a big part of our effort, as it lets us do more with less.”

VMware Infrastructure 101 As Beard sees it, the role of IT is changing at the school. Not only is IT becoming viewed as a source of savings rather than just a cost center, but it’s also becoming a more vital part of the Kelley School’s curriculum. “We’re putting more emphasis on information technology as a critical part of not only the operations side of the school, but also of the school’s educational mission,” he says.

server part of managing those networks, I don’t even teach them about individual servers, beyond the concept that they exist. We go straight into virtualization, which is exciting for students. Their eyes pop when they realize, for instance, that the print server they just printed a document to does not physically exist.”

IT becoming viewed as a source of savings—not just a cost center. In the lab portion of Beard’s course, each student works with VMware ESX 3 to build at least two virtual machines: one running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server, the other Windows 2008 Server. “I created a small network, installed ESX on several servers, then deployed virtual machines consisting of various operating systems and appliances to monitor the network,” reports Andrew Grossi, a recent course graduate. “That whole process took just hours, as opposed to the days or weeks it would have taken with physical instead of virtual machines.”

Impressed as he is with how easy it is to use VMware software, Grossi is even more appreciative of what it can do. “VMware technology is not Beard has observed that shift firsthand, as he only simple to implement and manage, but it also also teaches in the Kelley School’s Masters in provides enhanced capabilities that significantly Science Information Service program, which reduce the hassle associated with standardized confers a business-based IT degree. “The course infrastructure and monolithic back-ends,” he I teach is pretty exciting, because students get a observes.“In short, VMware software provides full-scale immersion in the language of manag- innovative solutions to meet business needs by ing networks,” he says. “And when we get to the more effectively utilizing infrastructure.”

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Beard says training students to use and make the most of VMware software is one of the best ways to prepare them for their future.“We are preparing these students to be information technology consultants working for enterprises like Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers,” he explains. “My job is to get them ready to come in and hit the ground running. Since VMware software is the leading solution for virtualization, I think it’s my responsibility to teach them about it. When students are done with the course, they know what VMware technology can do and how to deploy it, so they’re ready to manage a network or act as a consultant.”

Kevin Boyle, a programmer/analyst at Indiana University’s Information Technology Services, is another of Beard’s former students. “More than merely teaching me a new technology, he stirred a vision for the future possibilities created by virtualization technology,” Boyle says. “For instance, as processor speeds become faster and memory cheaper, VMware Infrastructure looks like it’s well-positioned to leverage these advances.” Working at the university, not just studying there, has given Boyle a deep appreciation of VMware technology. “VMware technology is growing in importance here at the university, especially as we prepare to move to our new computer center. It offers us the ability to move applications seamlessly with little or no downtime. That capability, coupled with the load-balancing benefits and all the savings on hardware, energy, and cooling, gives us plenty of compelling reasons to run applications on virtual machines whenever possible.”

One alumna of Beard’s course who’s doing just that is Deepti Rao, who recently started a job at one of the Big Four consulting firms.“Now that I’m part of an IT consulting firm with an established network virtualization practice, my hands-on experience with VMware software will help me move into that group and contribute actively in advising clients on the benefits of virtualization technology,” she says. “During the course, I saw the role virtualization can Results play in enabling business continuity and lowering costs, and now I look forward to helping clients • Power consumption cut by almost 70 percent • Environment is now 100 percent virtualized reap those benefits.” • Drastically reduced hardware and labor budget It seems that Rao has taken to heart one of the • An 18:1 server-consolidation ratio key lessons that Beard tries to instill in his course. • Server deployment time cut from days to less than an hour “We teach students not only about virtualization technology, but about using it to address impor- • CPU utilization up from about 2 percent to 70 percent tant business issues, especially accomplishing as much as you can with the budget you’ve got,” Beard says. “VMware Infrastructure has certainly let us do that here at the school. Things are going so well, we’ve kind of taken the excitement for granted at this point.”

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White Paper

Good Sports It’s time to bring sports programs into the climate action game Gil Friend, Natural Logic and Will Duggan, Sports4.org

Generative feedback1—performance feedback that changes behavior—offers a powerful missing link for campus greening efforts. Using the culture of sports, which fosters competition, personal excellence, and pride, can help turbo-charge those sustainability efforts.

Sports can help tackle climate change by leveraging their massive media reach and iconic power to inspire fans to make simple carbon-saving behavior changes. The National Carbon League (NCL)2 creates and celebrates intercity “coopetitions” (cooperative competitions), anchored and promoted by each city’s professional and intercollegiate sports teams, to track and reward the residents who can prevent the most carbon from entering the atmosphere. The NCL is based on two premises: • Sports can help tackle climate change by leveraging their massive media reach and iconic power to inspire fans to make simple carbon-saving behavior changes, such as car-pooling to games or changing light bulbs • People change behavior most effectively when they can directly see the consequences and impact of their actions.

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In 1948, J.M. Juran, one of the fathers of Total Quality Management, observed that, “to be in a state of self-control, a person should be provided with knowledge about what he ...is supposed to do, what he is actually doing, and what choices he has to improve results wherever necessary.... If any of these three conditions [is] not met,” Juran noted, “a person cannot be held responsible.” Unfortunately, in most organizations, one and sometimes all of these conditions is lacking. We fly blind and yet expect performance from people and organizations, even though it’s clear, from Juran’s formulation that most of us are not in a “state of self-control… [and] cannot be held responsible.” But if we’re to have any chance of success in the battle against climate change, we have to be both self-controlled and held responsible. It is a problem that is easy to remedy, both technically and culturally, and the remedy offers a powerful boost for campus greening movements across the country and around the world. The key is to combine (1) the behavior-changing power of real-time, generative feedback that communicates performance and progress, (2) the challenge to excellence offered by inter-collegiate and professional sports, and (3) the competitive spirit conveyed by the iconic, often place-based, power of sports marketing.

Everyday carbon-saving actions directly translate into measurable carbon savings. Campus-wide efforts are tallied via Web and mobile technology to add up to large-scale reductions of a metro-region’s environmental footprint. Carbon-saving scoreboards and messaging are integrated into game experiences and sports coverage to provide sports audiences with upbeat and ubiquitous reminders for saving money and the planet. The Carbon League will host coopetitions at many levels: between schools (e.g., UCLA vs. USC), campuses (SUNY-Binghampton vs. SUNY-Stony Brook), conferences and leagues (Pac-10 vs. the Big Ten, NL East vs. NL West), and among major sports leagues (NFL versus MLB versus NBA)—all on the basis of quantified per capita carbon savings. There are countless opportunities for awards, rewards and recognitions throughout the system. As professional and college participation is established, the NCL will expand to tally and celebrate efforts by minor league teams, and high school and youth sports to inspire measurable carbon-savings by neighborhoods, families, and local businesses.

A Visual Tally A sustainable community requires behavior change as well as technology change. Ubiquitous, interactive sustainability scoreboards can make it easier. Clear visual feedback on “How are we doing” in relation to various sustainability goals is one of the most effective drivers of change. It can acknowledge successes, making our individual “drop in the bucket” actions add up to something significant, highlighting slippage, and encouraging cooperative

competition between neighbors, businesses, and cities to do better. What if we had that sort of feedback, for the results we care about, at every level of the region—from university systems to campuses, from classroom buildings to stadiums to dorms, from towns to cities to regions? The proof is in the Prius: people’s driving behavior changes, not because of fines or financial incentives, but because of live, relevant, visual feedback on the impacts of their actions.

A sustainable community requires behavior change, as well as technology change. Ubiquitous, interactive sustainability scoreboards can make it easier.

The Inter-Collegiate Carbon League™ (ICCL)

As a generative feedback mechanism, a sports scoreboard is a pretty remarkable thing. For players and spectators alike, it quickly tells the story. Are we winning or losing? How much time do we have? What’s the immediate need? At a glance, a scoreboard provides what’s needed to get into the game. While college campuses have been steadily moving up the sustainability path, college sports programs have been failing to keep up. That is a shame. They have a lot to add in helping to inspire, measure and celebrate campus progress.

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A survey of NCAA Athletic Department Sustainability Practices conducted by Mark McSherry3 indicates that athletic departments are falling behind in what we would call basic “operational greening.” According to the Survey, only 10 percent of FBS [NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision] athletic departments have developed a strategic sustainability plan with short- and long-term goals... less than 10 percent of the surveyed athletic departments are currently measuring or planning to measure the athletic department’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions... andless than 5 percent are measuring recycle rates and setting recycle rate goals for all operations of facilities and events. Even worse, with few exceptions, athletic departments are failing to leverage their unique and iconic “inspirational greening” power to help drive climate action into the mainstream. The idea that climate action can benefit from the integration of a sporting sensibility is not new. America’s Greenest College Campuses, the EPA’s Green Power Challenge, and Duke’s Eco-Olympics are examples. And back in 2007, the University of Florida measured and counteracted the carbon emissions generated by their game with Florida State. But the ingredients of the basic powerful mashup have yet to come together. College campuses are unrivaled centers of sustainability innovation. College sports, at both intra- and intermural levels, are powerful engagement and communication engines. The sports culture of “keeping score” helps fuel and focus performance. At the very least, college sports properties should be leverag-

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ing this combination to explore ways of securing green sponsorship dollars.

Get in the Game Current technology enables trend analysis, display quality, and interactive experience that Buckminster Fuller could only dream about. Emerging technology enables dynamic, real-time and near-total information access and transparency, and generative feedback systems that can shift behavior, much as Prius drivers inevitably change driving habits in response to their dashboard’s real-time gas mileage readout—regardless of incentives. Planetary challenges require deployment of these interactive trending tools as broadly and rapidly as possible. Distribution of engaging, reality-based, planetary trending through distribution channels can change paradigms and behavior. The NCL will accelerate progress on climate action by: • Providing timely interactive feedback on sustainable city goals and performance to all stakeholders • Presenting it an intuitive, visual, adaptive, language- and culture-neutral user interface • Enabling independent and collaborative exploration of local, regional, and planetary sustainability trends • Developing multiple distribution channels (including the Web, WAP phones, TV news, print media, and bulletin boards) to enable widespread interactive, creative engagement for both the general public and policy-makers • Driving more rapid and effective action to achieve sustainability goals

In addition to its impact on climate action— using coopetition and generative feedback to drive performance and innovation—the Carbon League will enable college sports organizations to generate new green sponsorship revenues, align with local sustainable community visions, and protect brand reputations in the face of increasing social and environmental scrutiny and activism. In return, sports can contribute mightily to climate action, via: • Meaningful sustainability scoreboards that show how individual actions add up • Competitive standings that use available technology to organize, slice, dice, and present the data from participants in all sorts of ways • Peer support that focuses place-based loyalties—wanting our team to win—on winning the carbon game too • Sports sponsorships that encourage athletic departments to tell the story, putting the pieces together for what can add up to an attractive climate-action sponsorship platform for companies that want to get their own leadership messages and stories out

What Needs to Happen The core software for the NCL is already developed, ready to be customized. Negotiations are underway with key data sources. NCL uses a self-sustaining business/membership model to capitalize and expand the league—one that can invite corporate sports marketers down off Planet Bling and back to Earth by diverting 1 percent of U.S. sports ad spends (~$27 billion in 2007) to national/local environmental sustainability

education efforts. The NCL is now inviting ten campuses and one charter sponsor, to participate in the initial ICCL pilot. Are you game?

About the Authors: Gil Friend is president and CEO of Natural Logic, Inc., and author of The Truth About Green Business (FT Press, 2009). Natural Logic advises companies and governments on designing, implementing, and measuring business strategies and economic development programs that integrate bold financial, environmental, and social goals; build value; grow resilience; reduce risk; and deliver results. http:// www.natlogic.com Will Duggan is a sustainability marketer. He works the leverage points of popular culture -- news, sports, social networking, entertainment and advertising -to promote mainstream awareness of sustainability challenges and engagement in solutions. He anchors strategic coalitions of change agents who work in service to governments, businesses and NGOs. The National Carbon League (NCL) concept has been developed by Will Duggan, Gil Friend and David Traub, in collaboration with the US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and Global Urban Development’s Climate Prosperity Project. For more information about the National Carbon League and the Inter-Collegiate Carbon League, contact: carbonleague@natlogic.com To view footnotes please visit www.climateneutralcampus.com

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Case Study

Reducing a Carbon Footprint The Penn State University system reduces energy at its Commonwealth campuses Case Study Sponsored by ConEdison Solutions

In 1998, Pennsylvania State University began a Guaranteed Energy Savings Program to reduce the university’s energy use and carbon footprint at its many campuses and colleges around the Commonwealth. Project Scope Since 2006, ConEdison Solutions, through its subsidiary, Custom Energy Services, has completed four projects for the university, including campus-wide projects at Penn State Beaver, Penn State Erie, Penn State Harrisburg, plus the West Halls Residence complex on the main campus in University Park. Each project was developed to meet the unique needs of the campus and all were paid for with guaranteed energy savings. The projects completed by ConEdison Solutions through 2008 encompass 87 buildings and over 2,400,000 square feet. In addition to the work completed between 2006 and 2008, ConEdison Solutions has three additional projects under technical development at the Penn State, Great Valley; Penn State, Brandywine; and Penn State, Abington campuses in the Philadelphia area.

Energy Conservation Measures Lighting And Lighting Controls • High efficiency lighting • LED exit signs • Occupancy sensors Heating and Cooling • Variable air volume • Steam system improvements • Demand control ventilation • Air handling units Building Envelope • Weatherization • Roof insulation Water Conservation • Low-flow water fixtures Other Upgrades • Electric rate switch and meter installation Mechanical System Improvements • Building controls and systems optimization • Wind turbine • Retro-commissioning Construction Start Date: May 2006 Construction End Date: December 2008

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“ConEdison Solutions has been an excellent partner in our efforts to advance our energyefficiency goals throughout the Pennsylvania State University system,” says Bruce J. Smith, energy program engineer, Pennsylvania State University. “Partnering with with ConEdison Solutions has allowed Penn State to develop and implement self-funding environmental solutions at four campuses.”

Each project was developed to meet the unique needs of the campus, and all were paid for with guaranteed energy savings. Partnering with ConEdison Solutions has allowed Penn State to develop and implement self-funding environmental solutions at four campuses.

www.conedisonsolutions.com

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Green Paper Procurement UWSP purchases lower impact, recycled products and chooses partners that use alternative fuel sources Case Study Sponsored by NewPage

NewPage offers a variety of products with recycled content, sustainable forest management chainof-custody certification, and products made with substantial amounts of renewable energy. For a crucial recent project—the university’s redesigned In the arena of sustainability and reducing climate centerpiece admissions recruitment publication— change potential it takes two—a supplier and a UWSP selected NewPage Centura Gloss Cover. customer—to work together to achieve mutual Made at the Wisconsin Rapids Mill, less than twenty goals and objectives, to improve the supply chain, to miles from the university, the product contains 10 seek improvements and efficiencies, to foster trust, percent recycled content and is chain-of-custody and to benefit the geosphere at the same time. certified. The mill obtains 70 percent of its energy from renewable sources. Clearly, UWSP is exempliAn example of this is the ongoing relationship fying how procurement choices can and do make between the University of Wisconsin-Stevens a difference. Point (UWSP), a charter signatory of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Com- “At UWSP, we take great care in the development, mitment (ACUPCC) and NewPage Corporation. design, and production of the marketing comBoth UWSP and NewPage are committed to munication pieces that help us attract our best-fit leadership and action in sustainability and, in students. We are pleased to work with NewPage particular, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. in our efforts to balance the ever-present pressures of time, money, and resources to make a The ACUPCC provides a number of solutions difference for our students, faculty, staff, and the to assist colleges and universities in achieving world,” said Stephen Ward, executive director their climate neutral commitments. One of the and assistant to the chancellor for university relasolutions centers on the area of procurement. tions and communications. Recommendations within that solution include sourcing locally, purchasing lower impact products, purchasing products with recycled content and that are themselves recyclable, and choosing suppliers that utilize alternative fuel sources.

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White Paper

Green Mountain’s Climb to Climate Neutrality After nearly fifteen years of focus on sustainability, the College will achieve climate neutrality in 2011 Dr. Paul J. Fonteyn, William Throop, Ph.D., Amber Garrard and Kevin Coburn, Green Mountain College

Founded in 1834, Green Mountain College (GMC) is a residential college with 850 students, twenty-one academic majors, and two graduate programs. A century ago, wood from local forests was the main source of fuel to heat the campus buildings, and the college farm supplied the dining hall with produce. Today, the college has returned to that more sustainable way of doing business. It is constructing a biomass plant that will burn locally harvested wood

The journey toward this goal began in 1995, when then-GMC President Thomas Benson challenged his colleagues to commit to a mission focused on environmental sustainability. In response, the faculty developed a thirty-seven-credit Environmental Liberal Arts (ELA) general education curriculum, consisting of four core courses and seven distribution courses, which form the heart of every student‘s learning experience. ELA is field-based and service-oriented. The college‘s natural and social environments provide laboratories for learning.

As curricular reforms progressed, campus retrofits helped to reduce emissions and save energy. Commitment to sustainability In 1999, the EPA designated GMC as its first education became a criterion ENERGY STAR campus. It received this honor for for recruiting new faculty. retrofitting and replacing more than 2,900 light fixtures and 1,500 light bulbs, which ultimately chips for heat as well as produce electricity. Its reduced monthly electricity use from 119,280 farm, which provides produce for the college‘s kWh in March of 1997 to 84,174 kWh in January, cafeteria and the local community, is nation- 2000. Still, maintenance and efficiency challenges ally recognized as a model of organic farming presented by an aging campus were significant, methods. Through improving energy efficiency and climate neutrality was a distant dream. and converting to biomass fuel, GMC will reduce its carbon footprint by more than 50 percent Over time, the ELA curriculum had a transformawithin four years and achieve climate neutrality tive effect. Academic disciplines were bridged by 2011. to address environmental challenges. Faculty

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developed a shared understanding of the relevance of all disciplines to environmental problem-solving and discovered opportunities to collaborate on multi-disciplinary offerings, including fifteen-credit block courses where students spend an intensive semester working on such issues as local river pollution. Commitment to sustainability education became a criterion for recruiting new faculty.

action aligning the college‘s philosophy with its physical operations was student-generated.

Students’ Demands Student activism also influenced administrative decisions affecting food services and building construction. Students enrolled in a block course focusing on sustainable agriculture developed the college‘s sustainable food purchasing policy, and helped create the Rutland Area Farm & Food Link (RAFFL), a local organization that connects farmers with food providers and consumers. Student opposition to building a new dormitory resulted in an approach that supported principles of sustainability, and led to the regeneration of an existing building rather than the construction of a new one. And the remodeled building was to be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified, the first of its kind on campus. The students also recommended the inspirational name SAGE Hall (Students for Academic and Green Engagement).

The transformation resulted in heightened and informed activism focused on campus environmental challenges among students and faculty. In 2004, students enrolled in a course titled Environmental Advocacy, Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility created by the Student Campus Greening Fund (SCGF). This fund, made possible as a result of a student body referendum to increase the fees of each student by $30 per year, was designed to financially support proposals that increase environmental awareness and/or decrease the school‘s ecological footprint. SCGF proposals are written by students, evaluated by a student committee, and voted on by the GMC was already on the leading edge of sustainstudent body. ability reform on college campuses when the first It was a SCGF proposal that fostered consensus meeting of the Association for the Advancement for constructing the new biomass plant, the most of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) significant step in reducing GMC‘s carbon foot- was held in 2006, where Provost William Throop print. The proposal originated in a 2005 freshman represented the college at planning sessions for honors seminar addressing peak oil. Students the American College and University Presidents’ became concerned that the GMC heating plant Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). GMC President burned highly polluting No.6 fuel oil. The class Jack Brennan was among the initial signatories of wrote a proposal to investigate converting to the ACUPCC, and the first in Vermont. a biomass-fueled heating system. Their study showed that conservation would dramatically re- This commitment created an ambitious goal duce carbon emissions while achieving significant for the college‘s sustainability activities: to energy cost savings. Thus, the most influential achieve climate neutrality within a specific time

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frame. GMC‘s Sustainability Council, chaired by renewable energy economics expert Professor Steve Letendre, conducted a carbon inventory and then developed a proposal for a climate action plan. The Council, and students enrolled in more than ten classes, created a road map that would lead to climate neutrality. These enterprising measures prompted the new GMC president, Paul Fonteyn, to announce during his inaugural address in April 2009: “I can state with confidence that the college will be carbon neutral by 2011. We will be one of the first two colleges in the country to achieve this goal through actually reducing carbon emissions by more than 50 percent.”

Incentives for faculty, staff, and students will encourage use of alternative transportation.

horsepower, combined heat and power (CHP) biomass facility. The new facility will shift 85 percent of current fuel oil usage to biomass and burn an estimated 4,397 tons of locally sourced wood chips annually.1 This will reduce use of fuel oil from 230,000 gallons to 40,700 gallons per year, necessary only on the coldest days of the year. It will also produce 400,000 kWh of electricity per year, reducing emissions from 2007 levels of 106 MT CO2e to 87 MT CO2e. The estimated cost to build the CHP plant is $5.4 million with a payback period of eighteen years. To improve thermal efficiency, GMC will complete the process of replacing all the singlepane windows in its dormitories with highefficiency double-pane units, at an estimated cost of $712,500. GMC will begin to carry out comprehensive thermal efficiency and electricity audits of all campus buildings to generate a list of measures that can be taken in the mid- and long-term (2020 and 2050). Emissions from the campus fleet will be reduced by replacing current vans with more efficient vehicles.

In 2006, emissions from sources not controlled by the college, scope two emissions, were significantly reduced when GMC made the decision GMC‘s climate action plan, formally adopted by to purchase 50 percent of its electricity through the GMC community in September 2009, outlines Central Vermont Public Service‘s Cow Power short-term (2011), mid-term (2020), and long- program, at an estimated cost of $18,000 per term (2050) goals. By 2050, GMC will produce year. Cow Power delivers energy from burning all of its energy on site, have a climate neutral biogas derived from cow manure on Vermont campus fleet, and reduce emissions from air dairy farms. The new biomass co-generation travel by 80 percent. plant will further reduce these emissions, as will a range of behavioral changes and efficiency Emissions from sources controlled by the col- gains that have been proposed by student and lege, scope one emissions, will be dramatically faculty groups. reduced by the college‘s conversion to a 400

The Roadmap to Climate Neutrality

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Metric Tons C02e Emissions Source Scope One

Scope Two Scope Three

2007

2011

3,355

568

Campus Fleet Fuel Use (passenger and maintenance vehicles)

Agriculture (organic fertilizers and farm maintenance)

Purchased Electricity

106

Faculty/Staff Ground Travel (commuting and meetings)

282

268

Student Ground Travel (communting and campus programs)

118

112

Air Travel (faculty, staff and student for campus grounds)

591

Solid Waste

185

176

4,707

1,867

Stationary Fuel Use (heating and cooking)

TOTAL

Figure 1 provides greater detail on proposed short-term GHG mitigation strategies by scope.

A Better Way to Get Around

GMC predicts its emissions in fiscal 2011 will be 1,867 MT, as demonstrated by Figure 1. To Emissions resulting from faculty, staff, and student achieve climate neutrality by this date, the colcommuting, institutional ground and air travel, lege will have to purchase carbon offsets until and solid waste, scope three emissions, will be further reductions can be made. The projected reduced largely through behavioral changes. price range is estimated to be between $10 and GMC is conducting a transportation audit to as- $30 per metric ton, depending on the quality of sess and rank order opportunities for emissions reductions in air and ground travel. Institutional ground travel emissions will be reduced by 5 percent by 2011 through the addition of two hybrid vehicles for use by faculty and staff. The cost for GMCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pursuit of climate the two vehicles is $60,000. Emissions from air neutrality has inspired a new travel are projected to remain unchanged. Incentives for faculty, staff, and students will be created to encourage use of alternative transportation. These may include reducing rates on public transportation, expanding the collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s green-bike program, and instituting parking fees to discourage single-occupancy vehicles and promote the use of public transportation. Solid waste will be reduced through educational outreach to bring about behavioral change on campus.

academic program and several faculty/student research initiatives.

offsets, with an annual cost somewhere between $18,670 and $56,010. A carbon offset purchasing policy is presently being drafted, based on proposals developed by students in two environmental policy classes. The hope is that the achievement of the collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s 2020 mid-term goals for CO2e

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reductions will significantly reduce the future need to purchase these offsets.

students will learn to evaluate biomass technology using a cross-disciplinary, systems approach. Ethics and economics courses will evaluate The development of the climate action plan sustainable forestry practices. Farm courses will provided an opportunity for the entire campus address the potential for cultivating fuel on community to explore the complexities of Vermont farmland. Art and theater classes will becoming climate neutral. Students enrolled in portray the story of the human relationship with ELA courses developed projects that contributed forests in creative ways that appeal to a variety to the plan. A GIS class mapped locations of com- of audiences. muters to better track transportation patterns and recommend rideshare options. A conservation GMCâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s pursuit of climate neutrality has inspired a new academic program and several faculty/ student research initiatives. Its new Renewable Energy and Ecological Design certificate program will provide students with experience in green building and renewable energy technology, and These important endeavors prepare them for the Leadership in Energy and extend the relevance for Environmental Design and the North American climate neutrality from the Board of Certified Energy Professionals exams. A campus to the community group of faculty and students will research and and surrounding area, and map potential sites for solar, hydroelectric, wind encourage students to and geothermal energy in Poultney, VT., with the respond to climate issues on intent of creating a community energy plan. In multiple levels. partnership with the town, other faculty and students will track the impact of weatherization on psychology course analyzed behaviors associated buildings in Poultney. These important endeavors with recycling and suggested improvements to extend the relevance of climate neutrality from reduce solid waste on campus. A public policy the campus to the community and surrounding class explored the issue of biomass sourcing and area, and encourage students to respond to recommended institutional policy to reflect the climate issues on multiple levels. collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s high priority to buy from local providers. Students researched potential options for Next Steps an offset portfolio, grappled with affordability issues, and recommended strategies to assess The pursuit of climate neutrality is providing a valuable local focus for students, faculty, and offset purchases. staff to respond to the daunting global susThis next academic year, the biomass facil- tainability issues we face. The ELA curriculum ity will be the focus of campus activity, whereby ensures that students will continue to be active

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participants in the campus greening process. Faculty members are developing an electronic portfolio-based system for assessing the sustainability skills and knowledge that students acquire in this process. GMC staff members view themselves as fully engaged participants in advancing the campus to carbon neutrality. GMC is building a network of public and private partnerships to spark innovation, disseminate results, and provide financial support. The EcoLeague, a consortium of liberals arts colleges devoted to sustainability, provides an important conduit for knowledge about how colleges can impart a vision for a hopeful future through active engagement in local and regional problemsolving. The Eco-League offers opportunities for faculty and students to study other natural and social environments in diverse bioregions of the United States and to learn from others about new approaches to achieving carbon neutrality.

About the Authors: Dr. Paul J. Fonteyn is president of Green Mountain College and professor of biology at Green Mountain College. He previously served for six years as provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Dr. Fonteyn has been dean of graduate studies and associate vice president for research and sponsored programs at San Francisco State University, and associate vice president for research and sponsored projects at Southwest Texas State University. fonteynp@greenmtn.edu.

philosophy and environmental studies at Green Mountain College. Dr. Throop specializes in environmental ethics, theory of knowledge, and educational philosophy. He serves on the board of directors of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and on the editorial boards of Environmental Ethics and Restoration Ecology. throopw@greenmtn.edu Amber Garrard is sustainability coordinator at Green Mountain College. Garrard holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of Portland and a master’s degree in sustainable development from the SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro. During her practicum at SIT, she served as the institution‘s sustainability coordinator. garrarda@greenmtn.edu Kevin Coburn is the director of communications at Green Mountain College. He has a bachelor‘s degree in history from the University of Vermont and has worked in nonprofit communications for twenty-four years. His previous positions include director of Public Relations at the Montshire Museum of Science (Vermont) and New England College (NH). coburnk@greenmtn.edu To view sources please visit www.climateneutralcampus.com

William Throop, Ph.D. is provost and vice president of academic affairs and professor of

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Case Study

UNTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s New Building Infrastructure Strategic energy upgrades without breaking the bank Case Study Sponsored by TAC

Motivated by a desire to spend as much of its annual budget as possible on education, the University of North Texas took advantage of legislative changes to fund the renovation of its aging building infrastructure.

The Challenge By 1995, UNTâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s building systems had become unreliable and required constant maintenance and repair. But financing a comprehensive facility upgrade would require more than UNTâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s annual budget allocation. Legislative changes, however, opened the door to new financing options, empowering universities to retain energy savings and to self-fund energy conservation projects. In 1996, UNT issued a request for qualifications to select an energy service company (ESCO) deemed capable of providing the required renovations and strategic energy upgrades. The university defined the modernization objectives and specified that it wanted to fund the endeavor with a performance contract, guaranteeing energy savings sufficient to finance improvements.

demonstrated how the university could finance the project and pay for it with energy savings of up to $22.5 million over fifteen years.

Upon contract award, TAC committed to fifteen TAC was uniquely positioned to accept the chal- separate retrofit projects designed, first and lenge because it had prior experience successfully foremost, to upgrade the aging infrastructure. implementing controls and renovations at UNT, In addition, each project was designed to reas well as having an entire division dedicated duce utility costs while improving the learning solely to performance contracting. Moreover, TAC environment.

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The Solution

TAC‘s comprehensive training program enables UNT facility managers to develop competencies TAC‘s performance contracting group assembled in HVAC management, control concepts, energy a ten-member team of experts in energy manage- management strategies, system operation, and ment, lighting, HVAC and automatic temperature troubleshooting. And TAC‘s Performance Assurcontrol to perform the initial energy audit. Over ance Support Services (PASS) department is availa period of six months, the team invested more able to assist UNT operators if they encounter any than 5,000 man-hours analyzing energy demand problems during the guarantee period. and conservation opportunities to calculate potential savings. Calculations showed that the savings from the selected measures would exceed $1.4 million per year, with simple payback of the initial investment in a little more than six years. Accordingly, TAC offered a ten-year performance contract guaranteeing the university energy savings of $1.2 million per year, enabling UNT to repay the project costs. And if the energy savings dropped below the guaranteed level during the ten-year period, then TAC would write a check for the difference.

Calculations showed that the savings from the selected measures would exceed $1.4 millon per year. As an added benefit outside the scope of the original contract, UNT and TAC have established an on-site training center for the university‘s facilities staff. The training center boasts a fully equipped product wall containing all the most common components used by the TAC system on campus.

The Bottom Line Installation of new equipment began in July 1997 and was completed in March 1999. To date, the renovated systems deliver a consistently higher level of comfort for the 30,000 students that attend the university. In addition to being more accurate and responsive, the new systems result in fewer calls to maintenance personnel. Centrally monitored and streamlined digital controls also allow facilities staff to quickly troubleshoot and resolve problems throughout various facilities.

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Solution Provider Index As a dining and facility management partner with more than 600 colleges and universities throughout North America, ARAMARK Higher Education has a deep respect for and commitment to protecting and improving the environment. The company works to reduce its environmental footprint, and offers expertise and practical solutions to its clients to help them reduce their environmental impacts. pp. 68–69 For more information, visit www.aramarkhighered.com

A key part of BP’s alternative energy business, BP Solar is a global company with more than 2,200 employees focused on harnessing the sun’s energy to produce solar power for electricity. We design, manufacture, and market solar electric systems for homeowners, businesses, and governments. pp. 78–79, 95–98 For more information, visit www.bpsolar.us

B A R A RC H I T E C T S

BAR Architects, a 75-person architectural design firm, employs a staff of more than 80 percent LEED accredited professionals and has designed award-winning livable communities for numerous public and private universities. A certified San Francisco Bay Area Green Business, BAR’s mission is to shape sustainable buildings that add to the quality of life. pp. 88–89 For more information, visit www.bararch.com

Nourishing students is not only our business; it is our commitment to the communities in which we serve. Chartwells is a diverse family of dedicated food and nutrition specialists serving the academic community. We deliver customized solutions that benefit our partners through innovative programs. pp. 25 For more information, visit www.eatlearnlive.com

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www.conedisonsolutions.com

ConEdison Solutions, a leading energy services company, provides competitive power supply, renewable energy, sustainability services, and cost-effective energy solutions for commercial, industrial, residential, government, public school district, and higher education customers. The firm’s dedicated team of energy professionals delivers a broad range of commodity, consulting, and energy performance contracting services. pp. 53, 128–129 For more information, visit www.conedisonsolutions.com

Faronics’ solutions help organizations increase the productivity of existing IT investments and lower IT operating costs. Faronics Power Save delivers nondisruptive PC power management with proven return on investment through energy savings reports. For every 1,000 computers the solution is deployed on, Faronics Power Save delivers annual savings of $50,000. pp. 44–45, 104–105 For more information, visit www.faronics.com

Honeywell Building Solutions installs, integrates, and maintains the systems that keep facilities safe, comfortable, efficient, and productive. We’re also a global leader in energy services, working with organizations to conserve energy, optimize building operations, and leverage renewable energy sources. pp. 87, 106–107 For more information, visit www.honeywell.com/buildingsolutions/energy

Infor acquires and develops functionally rich software backed by thousands of domain experts and then makes it better through continuous innovation, faster implementation options, global enablement, and flexible buying options. In a few short years, Infor has become the third-largest provider of business software. pp. 26–28 For more information, visit www.infor.com/green

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Mac-Gray Campus Solutions has been the premier laundry service provider to the academic community since 1951. Through the installation of high-efficiency laundry equipment, the company has helped helped their college and university partners save millions of gallons of water. pp. 56 For more information, visit www.campus-solutions.net

Motorola promotes a green environment by designing wireless solutions that support greater energy efficiency. From its Wireless LAN portfolio—which earned “Greenest Wi-fi Vendor” recognition from ABI Research—to the world’s first mobile phone made using recycled post-consumer plastics, Motorola is committed to reducing the carbon footprint of the company and its customers. pp. 54–55, 67 For more information, visit www.motorola.com/education

Headquartered in Miamisburg, Ohio, NewPage Corporation is the largest coated paper manufacturer in North America, based on production capacity, with $4.4 billion in net sales for the year ended December 31, 2008. The company’s product portfolio is the broadest in North America and includes coated freesheet, coated groundwood, supercalendered, newsprint, and specialty papers. pp. 123, 130 For more information, visit www.newpagecorp.com

From building automation and energy efficiency to fire safety and security, Siemens answers the toughest infrastructure questions for facilities to help make buildings comfortable, safe, productive, and less costly to operate. As part of an international corporation, we have the resources to deliver world-class solutions and services with local support through our more than 100 North American field offices. pp. 62–63, 103 For more information, visit usa.siemens.com/buildingtechnologies

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Through performance contracting, energy solutions division of TAC by Schneider Electric specializes in turnkey energy management projects. Schneider Electric is a $23 billion global energy management enterprise dedicated to making clients’ energy safe, reliable, efficient, productive, and green from plant to plug. pp. 2, 73–77, 138–139 For more information, visit www.tac.com/energysolutions

TÜV SÜD America Inc., a subsidiary of TÜV SÜD AG, is the first auditing company to be UNFCCC-accredited to all scopes and has worked on hundreds of projects worldwide within the Kyoto Protocol. TÜV’s Carbon Management Service offers validation and verification of projects in line with the leading carbon trading schemes. pp. 131 For more information, visit www.tuev-sued.com/climatechange

Unisource Worldwide, Inc. is one of the largest independent distributors of printing and imaging papers, facility supplies and equipment, and packaging materials and equipment in North America. We offer thousands of national brands and private-label products from some of the world’s most trusted manufacturers. pp. 43 For more information, visit www.unisourcegreen.com

VMware is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter—bringing cloud computing to businesses of all sizes. Customers rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security, and go green. Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., VMware is majority-owned by EMC Corporation. For more information, visit www.vmware.com/go/energysavings’s mission is to shape sustainable buildings that add to the quality of life. pp. 19, 108–111, 120–122 For more information, visit www.vmware.com

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